in having moved into new house, I have access to the entire run from the electrical panel to the receptacles in audio room. having learned so much here, about grounding, RF isolation etc, I have loosely planned to run dedicated circuit breaker to each dual box receptacle box. I could even run dedicated circuit breaker to each receptacle in each box. after much reading here, I have thought it might have some benefit, to run PVC conduit from panel to the receptacle. Some of the 2 x 2 binomial factorials…sorry that was a bit flippant, was that I could separate the wires by Function they served in the positive to ground cycle.
based on your experiences, would there be any benefit to running
– all positives in one conduit, all neutrals in one and all grounds in another
– put neutral and ground in same conduit as they are ganged together @ the panel buss
– not have a wall of 15 conduit tubes running distance from panel to receptacle
would welcome any thoughts
I will have a larger grounding rod installed, and don’t know if creating separate sub-panel with dedicated ground rod, would make a discernible difference.
Conduit is mainly useful when it comes time to snake in new cable. But it generally isn’t used much for mains because that uses solid core not flex so even with conduit and lubricant, it will be hard to pull a fishline through.
There’s no reason to separate live and neutral and generally, these are going to be supplied as a single cable anyway. I suspect running them separately might even violate code in some countries. However, you can run safety earth as a separate cable if you like. It’s quite common for safety earth to cross circuits boundaries. So just ensure that safety earth for the hifi goes direct to the consumer unit and does not daisy chain to other noisier circuit sockets.
If you are having dedicated consumer units, you really should have a dedicated ground for each, otherwise there isn’t really much more benefit than just having them on the same consumer unit but on dedicated circuits.
I strongly recommend you discuss this with an electrician familiar with the required legislation for your country.
The roll of wire recommended to me from large US Dealer, was stranded 10 gauge , and so they will not be in the same outer sheath, but rather, one wire for each, live, neutral and ground.
The conduit is not a grounding conduit, and have arranged the panel to separate common wires from ground wires where by buss together.
When I hear ‘dedicated ground for each consumer unit’ It is not quite clear to me. If one has 2 x 555 PS, 552 PS, 500 PS, Super Cap, Napsc…does that = a ground for each unit?
And the listening space is above a space to which I have access, and have remodeled, and clear, workable access to route the tube through the studs. I work part time for a contractor friend, and code in WA state in the US requires a entirely new circuit breaker design, with common on the CB itself, instead of bussed to back buss of panel. So… So ist daß Lebens
My own feeling is that I wouldn’t do anything that is unusual with mains supply. As mentioned already, separating L, N and E in different conduits may violate electrical codes and unless you have a specific reason to do it, ie. you have experimented and found that doing so leads to clear sonic benefits, then it’s a pointless thing to do anyway. I would advise you to engage an electrician and stick to a standard dedicated mains supply using decent guage cable. Without proper experimentation to verify first you may well find that doing some of the things you suggest may actually end up sounding worse. It may seem like a good idea in theory but that doesn’t guarantee it will actually be better at all.
this wasn’t based on my feelings, this was suggested by the largest retailer in the United States, and ….I could not agree more, the only grail would be in listening.
I value being an apt pupil….the two electrians with whom I work part time were fascinated
IIUC from this, namely that each neutral and live combination is through a combine (double pole) breaker, then it is critical that the same wires combine together at the outlet, and I believe it would be essential to run them visibly as one, whether a single cable with both conductors (optionally including safety ground wire) or through a single conduit for each outlet, or tacked to a wall beside each other and separated from the next. To do otherwise by, for example, mixing all lives in one conduit and neutrals in another risks the wrong ones being connected at the room end, not necessarily by you but maybe some future occupier of the property.
Any qualified electrician in your country surely should be clear on this, and you should certainly consult one.
If I’ve understood correctly you are planning to run separate individual circuits from the board to each receptacle. When I spoke to Naim about this a few years back they very strongly recommended that I ran a single circuit from its own breaker to supply all of the dedicated HiFi outlets, so that’s what I did, and it works very well.
US and UK domestic electrical installations are quite different, so I can’t comment on how this would translate into an arrangement that is compatible with your wiring arrangements and regulations.
I had a couple of quite long chats about this with Steve Hopkins when he was Naim’s customer service manager. His recommendations were based on my actual system at the time, which he was aware of, and distance from the consumer unit.
He also mentioned that they had experimented quite a lot when wiring the main demo room, and his recommendations were based largely on that, plus other installations he had done subsequently.
Steve made a number of suggestions, but the main ones that, when I pressed him, he insisted should not be avoided, were:
Use a separate consumer unit run by splitting the meter tails.
Use a single 10mm cable for the whole system.
We did not, I admit, discuss earthing arrangements, beyond him briefly mentioning that while a TT arrangement may be best, it was probably outside the bounds of what was practically achievable in most homes.
this is from 2024.
and…hard to believe it’s the same language
a consumer unit = an electrical panel in the states. for some reason it suggests each individual electrical device in a home.
Yes, there are some differences in terminology. A ‘consumer unit’ in the UK is what you call a board or panel. It’s relatively easy here to split the incoming supply after the meter and add a separate consumer unit solely for the HiFi circuit. I get the impression this may not be possible in some US houses.
What you call a receptacle or an outlet is just called a socket here: some in the UK will not be familiar with these terms.
We had a new consumer unit fitted last year made by a company called Fusebox. Now there’s logic for you.
Like your experience I called Naim for advice, probably over 25 years ago. They recommended a single 10mm2 cable direct from its own ‘fusebox’ to an unswitched double socket, so that’s what we did. Years later we changed the earthing: it was previously daisy chained off the main house CU and it was changed so that it ran directly back to the incoming supply in the meter box. That probably made about as much difference as adding the whole dedicated mains in the first place.
Just a few things no note. One should NEVER use a ground rod electrode in a PME earthing setup for your house, unless the ground electrode is for a physically a separate building such as an outhouse, remote office, shed, caravan etc. A supply fault could create a lethal situation for anyone in your house. You may find installing such a setup unofficially might invalidate any buildings insurance you might have.
So assuming you have a non PME type electricity supply as a TT system, then an earth rod electrode does not neccessarily sink RF.. a common misconsumption that it does with some less technically oriented. The earth electrode will only offer an optimum impedance to ground for wavelengths that are multiples of 1/4 wavelength and 3/4 wavelength from the source to the optimum conductive point in the electrode. Wavelengths that are multiples of wavelength / 2 will have no effect what so ever with an earth electrode.
However converting your house to a TT supply by a professional provides one of the best things one can do to lower residual electrical noise levels on your earth supply - thereby isolating noise on the neutral and live t some extent from sensitive equipment.
I undertook this for non Hifi reasons, and it was one of the best ‘upgrades’ in audio I did and it was all by accident!!!
In my experience significantly more effective than messing about with consumer boxes, wire thickness, and length of tails from the meter etc, assuming you have a modern consumer board setup and fairly modern wiring … which you may find make no real or very little difference at all depending on your setup for quite bit of effort.
a TT earthing system with a ring for audio has provided the best outcome for me. A ring usually offers a lower impedance to ground than a radial for many setups and typical wire types… unless your radial earth is more than twice the gauge of the ring main earth… but I realise ring circuits can be quite unusual in many parts of the world.
As Edison said, I have only learned 10,000 ways not to make a lightbulb.
Amazing the education one gets when necessity as the mother of invention.
According to any source in the digital ‘on line’ world, having neutral (common) and live (hot/postive) in different encasing, allows for eddy current flows, as the magnetic field created by each line to a device being supplied, does not cancel out the other return line. This lack of cancellation causes heat and high resistance. The ground, in the US, is only there as a route of flow of energy in case of a fault…the loop is nominally from live-neutral, which both circle through the panel (consumer unit).
Saves me a lot of work, and reminds me I avoided physics courses @ University.
The ignorant concept was to separate any potential interference, and learned, that interference is inherently designed to mitigate unintended consequences of heat and unstoppable current flow.
The heck
as always, this forum is a great lexicon of information and one can see why Naim has historically made the recommendations they have given.
Given that (I think) you have a HF transmitter on your premises, is there a higher rate of inspection that you apply to your TT arrangement compared say with simple domestic occupancy (cf 5 years for rented or 10 years for owner occupancy UK regs)?
Hi Edmund, no there is no higher rate of inspection, as a full certified Ofcom amateur license holder I am authorised and required to inspect my own RF setups and keep, where appropriate, plans and field strength documents.
As far as the mains and conversion to a TT setup, that is covered by UK Electrical regulations and a qualified individual needs to typically apply, but certainly certify such a conversion.
The key thing, other than adjusting the utility supply at your demarcation point in the provisioning and testing of a suitable earth impedance at your premise.
Interestingly with UPS battery supplies becoming common with solar panel setups, here a TT setup has to be installed, assuming it can, when under isolated battery power that is ONLY activated once the utility PME is isolated (usually by relays automatically) in the event of a power failure.
