Do you have your system on its own dedicated ring on the house electrical supply?

Yes     [following BtB's concise reply].

I've not got a separate distribution box for the dedicated rings-main, though I know that is preferred. Mine has it's own RCD in the general distribution box.  I installed the dedicated rings-main myself some years back (before regs limited who could do such work) and I used specialist mains-cable from Russ Andrews which is meant to resist RFI.  I did it to avoid the clicks and plops I had experienced over some time as other things in the house turned on and off.  These have been eradicated completely. What I hadn't experienced was an uplift in sound quality. As James says, this is a very cost effective upgrade. On the downside, it can be messy and disruptive. I had the floorboards up in the under-stairs cupboard, hall and lounge for several days when I did mine.  

Hi everyone I would like to do this with my system. I got one quote so far for £1200 which seems a bit steep but it does include plastering a small wall and boarding/skimming a ceiling.   What is the recommended backplate for the sockets?  I could use metal ones buried in the plaster, flush mounted plastic or office style trunking

John Hoptroff posted:

Hi everyone I would like to do this with my system. I got one quote so far for £1200 which seems a bit steep but it does include plastering a small wall and boarding/skimming a ceiling.   What is the recommended backplate for the sockets?  I could use metal ones buried in the plaster, flush mounted plastic or office style trunking

That seems a bit expensive to me, but hard to judge without knowing exactly what is involved. For neatness, I would go for recessed metal back boxes and buried cables if possible, but I can’t see any reason why surface mounting wouldn’t work just as well. 

Yes it does make a difference and it is well worth doing if you have the opportunity. I had a separate 2.5mm twin and earth spur for a few years and it made the background cleaner and darker, improving all aspects of the music. 

I then had a kitchen refit and had a new distribution board installed with circuit breakers for the new kitchen appliances BUT kept the original fuse box solely for the hifi. As the kitchen ceiling was down I ran a 10mm spur from it to unswitched Crabtree sockets in the lounge. Initially my electrician provided a circuit breaker for the hifi board but it was an old one and the sound was not as good as I was expecting or knew it could be based on my previous experience. By the way my electrician who was very sceptical of the whole idea heard the system  when I played Hotel California live from Hell Freezes over and he was completely astounded at how good the whole thing sounded.   I later replaced the carrier holding the old circuit breaker and fitted a wired fuse and carrier which lifted the sound even further.

In my experience it is a thoroughly worthwhile upgrade as long as it can be easily achieved from a structural point of view AND provided it is done safely.