I see it has been mentioned that we are concerned with many kilometres of cable, but realistically I would have thought we would only be concerned (at most) with the cable from the substation to the houses, as the substation is a big transformer and therefore has no physical connection to the cables feeding the substations. (like a balanced power supply)
In my case I am about 300 yards from the substation, although I do know it feeds about 3 streets nearby. Of course that may add up to a few km of cabling, but we need to exclude the long lengths of cable that feed the substations.
Ok, this will depend on where one lives, but nevertheless the cable resistance, specifically, from the transformer is compound and even with 300 yards the wire in the house only changes a tiny fraction of that
I was just mulling this over to myself. It is often claimed that the electricity supply gives better sound quality in rural areas as opposed to cities etc. The reason given is that in rural areas the supply is cleaner due to less pollution from other users, both domestic and commercial. Iām sure this is absolutely true. However there may be other factors.
Consider this. In rural areas the supply cables are typically routed above ground, suspended from pylons of various descriptions, and with the conductors uninsulated and suspended in free space. In built up areas the supply cables are typically buried below ground. The conductors here I assume are insulated for safety and routed in some kind of heavy gauge plastic conduit. All this could well have a dielectric effect that could adversely impact on sound quality.
Also cables buried in the ground are presumably more susceptible to microphonic effects caused by ground vibration from traffic etc. Cables on pylons are effectively isolated on giant cable lifts!
I too think there are a # of other factors playing a role. Maybe even some we donāt know or fully understand yet (here or in general). Copy & paste network cables, power cords etc.
I think every you would need to look at all the feeds from the substation to understand the possible effects. Now these may go to little industries with big heaters or motors, or may be going to farmers running heavy industrial processing systems for say milk. Then again your neighbour may have a swimming pool, or sauna, or some old storage heaters, or some old fluorescent tubes from 1950. Being rural probably gives you a better understanding on whatās around you.
I always get a dip in the lights at about 21:30 each day, but have no idea which building is causing that. It is a switch on, or off of a big heavy duty appliance. There are only houses near me, and the cannabis farm in a nearby loft was dismantled a few years back, so who knows.
I think what we can say for sure is that the situation is complex, with a number of undetermined and undeterminable factors at play.
Now, whoās up for building their own private power station in the back garden? I have a novel idea here. Several thousand hamsters happily going around in their little wheels to drive the turbines!
I canāt install a dedicated hi-fi supply here. Reason - we live in a 1930ās bungalow, and the consumer unit / mains feed is located in a totally bizarre position - in the kitchen near the bottom of a wall which is behind a fitted kitchen unit! We had the kitchen re-fitted when we moved in and this involved fitting a false back to one of the units with a cut-out to allow access to the consumer unit and meter. I did ask the electrician about re-positioning it but he basically said it would be far too involved as every circuit in the property would need to be extended or re-routed. Likewise fitting another dedicated hi-fi CU would mean it would need to be close to the mains inlet behind the kitchen unit. I suppose it could be done but I just canāt bear the thought of all the upheaval, removing the kitchen unit, getting it modified yet again and then re-fitting it, lifting floor boards/carpets etc. Oh no!
So Iām stuck with the standard supply. What I was wondering is how to optimise this for the best performance? There are about 3 cheap mains blocks plugged into the circuit in various rooms. These donāt have neons but I seem to remember reading that even so they can introduce noise as they tend to create arcing at a microscopic level due to poor connections. So Iām wondering if it might be worth replacing these with something more up-market like Olson blocks for instance? Any thoughts or experience on this or anything else that might help appreciated.
The Mains block is really only relevant where used on the hifi units. As a dedicated mains isnāt an option, then assuming you have funds available, there is no reason why you shouldnāt get gains from upgrading other components such as Mains cables, Mains Block (if using a Ā£10 one), interconnects, or even upgrade your HiFi components to the next model up. What is your system, as it doesnāt appear in your profile?
Itās not Naim, but Iāve used Naim extensively in the past. I have a Melco N100 music library, Sim Audio Moon 340i amp and Klipsch Forte III speakers. All Chord Company cables including power cables and I have a good quality Olson mains block shortly to be replaced with the new Chord Company S6 block.
Hi Pete ā the garage type consumer units (and a Henley block to split the meter tails) donāt take up too much space and so this may not result in too much upheaval around the cupboard restriction.
It may also be worth looking at external cable runs to save routing internally. For my installation, the meter / consumer unit is located at the opposite side of the house to the lounge and so we decided to run the cable up to the loft (easily done with a bit of thought on routing through some bedroom cupboards), across the loft and then down via external conduit and in through the lounge wall to the socket in the lounge for the Hi-Fi. Nice and simple with no messing about or internal redecoration needed.
If you really canāt do this then Iād go around all the sockets on the ring your Hi-Fi uses and clean and tighten the connections including the ones at the consumer unit (isolate the circuits and check itās all isolated first). I did this a few years back (before the dedicated mains install) when we were decorating and it provided a good uplift for little effort.
Thanks, yes routing the cable externally might be an option and one that I hadnāt thought of. The primary issue though is having to remove the kitchen unit/worktop to allow the new CU unit to be fitted. To be honest I just canāt bear the thought of it - plus the fact that in my experience such endeavours are seldom as straight-forward as they first appear. There are usually knock-on effects and problems, ie. you need a new this or new that etc.etc. and the whole thing becomes vastly more involved and expensive. Sorry for my pessimism but thatās been my experience over the years. Lifeās too short - leave well alone is now my motto.
No worries Pete. This is where a good electrician comes in as they can work miracles around ādifficultā installs but I understand where you are coming from.
There is also the elephant in the room, in that if you have noise pollution on your mains that is from a source outside your house, the dedicated mains wonāt fix that.
I put a dedicated 10mm radial into my old house, upgrading the mains, meter tails and sockets (unswitched) as well as the consumer units.
There was a nice little uplift (though the 10mm cables took a while to burn in - very sterile at first) and I was quite pleased with myself until a few months later when I was demoing some quite terrible conditioning units alongside the Powerigel. At some point, the dealer and I decided to see what impact the conditioning units would have on the main ring main (still terrible) but were then both amused (and for a while sidetracked) to discover there was absolutely no sonic difference between the new ring main and new dedicated radial. It turned out all the improvements came the other changes.
Iāve only upgraded the earth in my current house, though I may play around with a dedicated radial again in the future, just out of curiosity. Or I may notā¦
Itās probably worth mentioning that the make of the cable and its orientation are also important! Prismian T&E is the best Iāve tried, with the text reading from the CU to the HiFi. The Prysmian is only slightly more expensive than the cheapest imports, but itās great quality. Approx 20% of imported generic T&E doesnāt meet spec so saving 50p/m just isnāt worth the gamble. The orientation of the radial is just as important as the orientation of the supplied mains leads too.
My hypothesis for why not everyone hears the same improvement with a dedicated radial is that most electricians will use the cheapest cable and thereās a 50% chance that itās installed the wrong way round (for highly refined HiFi systems, and in the grand scheme of things, even a Nait qualifies as such!).
Imho, the quality of the cable from the CU to the outlet is every bit as important as the quality of the cable from the outlet to the input of our HiFi systems.