All our lighting is now LED (apart from a couple of vintage fittings that still have tungsten bulbs in them at the moment).
I found most LED lights to be electrically noisy, some of them alarmingly so, but managed to find some that were very quiet. At least the electricity bills have gone down a bit.
Yes the electrician wiring the home even said to expect to see some flickering as an appliance turns on.
Strange, I’ve never noticed any flickering. I was more concerned about negative effects of the light fittings on the hifi rather than the other way round.
My wife and I were walking the house with the electrician yesterday to go over locations for lighting, etc. (it’s mostly framed; no wallboard for a while yet) and he did make the point of saying to expect a little flicker just as something cuts on; he says he gets that in his home even. Ive never heard a thing untoward through my hi fi other than that one time I heard Russian radio coming through my subwoofer when no music was playing; that was a bad cable between the sub and the amp 
Some of my low voltage led lights flicker when they come on, and off but that is a result of the led drivers. They don’t cause other lights to flicker. I wonder if that’s what he means
He seemed to be saying that a light might flicker when an appliance comes on. You’re point could also be what he was talking about; my wife was saying that she remembered the days where fluorescent lights flickered at 60 Hz. Those gave me headaches!
I get so much flack whenever I mention mains and racks I’ve largely given up. It seems some will spend thousands on fancy pants cables while plugging the system into the ring main and balancing it on a cardboard box. Good mains and supports is so fundamental, and the foundation on which everything is built.
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For anyone that might be interested in my (albeit very brief) experiment, I have reverted back to using all 4 double sockets. There is a noticeable difference, on the same socket the sound is more closed in and somewhat edgy. On separate sockets more slam and a bigger more relaxed presentation…I guess one mans lack of integration could be another mans open soundstage? 
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I’ll finally join the 20th century (!) and have a dedicated mains.
There is SO MUCH wiring going on in this house. Yet the electrician (the owner/manager of the crew) had it all in his head; seemed to just come natural to him.
He didn’t fuss about the 60 amp line I want in the garage for the car charger.
Well done you! Do try and get 10mm2 cable if you can. It’s really thick but makes such a difference.
Sometimes these things go full circle. When people have run out of things to say about how many ferrites to clip onto the upgraded power cable on the upgraded PSU on their upgraded switch, attention will no doubt be focussed elsewhere. It’s only a matter of time.
I would not want to provoke a long and polarised discussion on the use of LED and incandescent bulbs (yes I will keep to bulbs; for me a lamp is something that sits on a bedside table or sideboard), but I think we are misled by the led argument.
There are plenty of papers about, many dating back to the 2000’s when led’s were suggested as an alternative to the light bulb talking about the complicated manufacture using rare earth materials, problems with re-cycling and power use at switch-on, long before the EEC started laying down the law. Additionally there are papers now discussing the quality of light, and of benefits and drawbacks.
Still, the power saved by led’s will off-set the power consumed by us leaving the Naim’s powered on all the time.
However, I wanted to suggest another problem on the mains network where the solar panels (operating DC) use a grid tied inverter to share the solar energy onto the Grid, and the additional pollution introduced (for example at around 20kHz), adding to all the pollution already injected by switched mode, ethernet over mains, and mobile phone radiation added via the un-shielded mains cable networks.
This increasing pollution on the mains supply is maybe something that we adapting to over time as the effect on the fidelity of our systems is gradual and un-noticed until we make a change on the supply side, and something changes, or at least we hear something has changed.
The problem of pollution was something radio hams were aware of but now the short waves are now less well used, no one is complaining.
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I’ve had solar panels now for 3 years. I personally cannot hear a drop in SQ, but to be honest my main listening comes at night when they are off and the world is calmer. I think there is too much external noise pollution and distractions throughout the day to really enjoy the HiFi
This is interesting as I going to invest in a solar array and a 5kw battery at some point…
I don’t have a battery so at night it’s effectively off, however adding a battery means you will be drawing from it at night. Now I’ve no idea if that’s a really good thing, or whether it adds noise. Depending on the battery system you might argue that it’s potentially cleaner. I bet someone knows.
You may get flack @anon4489532, but don’t ever stop giving out your advice. In my thread praising the Credo last year, you suggested I “get rid of that crap rack”. Somewhere else you recommended a dedicated mains feed as a foundation for any good system. Others suggested system upgrades.
I’ve seen these suggestions from yourself and others over the years, but never been in a position to do anything. Since last year I found myself in a position to act on these things. All I needed was for you and one or two others to remind me of the importance and benefit of doing them. Now they all done and I have the system I wanted, on a good rack and fed by dedicated mains. It is wonderful!
Somewhere, sometime, someone is reading your advice and acting on it, to the benefit of their system and their ears.
Thank you HH.
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Thank you Graeme for your kind words. It’s always nice to get positive feedback. In the face of fancy leads that cost thousands and uber expensive ethernet paraphernalia, boring stuff like sorting out the mains can easily be overlooked. I’m surprised when I see people with £50,000 systems hanging them off the house mains. Getting the best out of what I’ve got at a sensible price is important to me, but possibly less so to others.
That’s exactly what I did. I have since tried using just one socket and a MW distribution block and found no audible difference though.
In my case we went through the ceiling, drilling three holes through every joist running perpendicular to the cable direction. It meant a lot of mess and plastering, but was done at the same time as we were having a new kitchen installation and it seemed to be the best option.
Definitely worth considering. I recently changed from an internally wired 6mm dedicated radial to an external armoured 6mm cable (change of location of gear) and there was a significant improvement. I believe this is down to the increased diameter of the earth in the armoured cable.