Yes. When rewiring our Cornish gaff my son (fully qualified sparky) ran a temporary ‘above ground’ seperate radial supply in 10mm with own CU. Result - no difference whatsoever when compared to new wiring. My belief is that, in general, most domestic wiring is so compromised that a dedicated hifi supply is bound to sound better simply because the existing supply is so poor.
Given that most people won’t have the luxury of such a comparison I guess it makes sense to install such a supply rather than having a complete rewire!! I do smile however when I read people waxing lyrical about the night and day difference between 6mm and 10mm cable!
10mm cable or higher should theoretically sound better, but in a dedicated CU situation with good quality components I doubt whether anyone can definitely say that 10mm sounds significantly better than 6mm. Its not something that can easily be subject to a subjective A/B comparison.
I have 6mm radials, I needed 4 radials and 10mm proved too difficult to work with in my situation. IMO keeping the radials as short as possible is likely to be more important, in the same way that Audio signal paths should be kept as short as possible.
I’d tend to agree. A few years back when we last decorated i took the opportunity to check all the sockets on the lounge radial and the connections back at the CU. Most sockets connections needed a good clean up and the screw terminals tightening, not surprising after 18 years. The result was a small but worthwhile uplift in SQ. As we have quite a lot of kit hanging off the lounge radial it seemed a good move to go to a dedicated supply. Apart from a surprising uplift in SQ over the standard ring. the system is no longer affected by other items in the house, particularly the Plasma TV which shares the same ring. For the cost involved, for me it was a no brainer and certainly something i would do again in the next house.
I belive it is a no brainer. With the lengths that many audiophiles will go too, spending money that most “normal” people consider bonkers, it does make me chuckle when said audiophiles then scoff at the idea of “improving” the mains supply.
Source first = the mains power supply. Otherwise a bit like formula one cars running on chip fat
My electrician is planning to run the cable out through the brick wall, round the outside of the house, and back into the sitting room through another wall.
Maybe an extra couple of metres of cable - but presumably a cleaner route in terms EM noise.
And cheaper in terms of labour costs, because it’s so much simpler to execute.
The extra cost of the armoured cable that is required for external runs will push up the price a bit, and it’s somewhat more awkward to instal.
The alternative would be to use regular T&E in trunking. The old fashioned way to do this is with steel trunking, which has the added (potential) benefit of screening the cable.
I believe my smart meter uses the mobile network. The shocker is the display charger which emits lots of RF or whatever. I noticed this when I moved it nearer the HiFi. Now it’s in the hall and mostly turned off. I believe it charges it’s small battery periodically so there may be good times and really bad times!
I had a smart meter with Evo Energy - but just changed supplier and the new one refuses to use that smart meter. Which doesn’t sound very sustainble to me!
Anyway, the smart metre was never looked at after the first week.
We care hugely in my house about energy usage, but the numbers associated to each activity added little what we already knew about reducing consumption.
So we have saved a little bit of leccy by unplugging it.
Jim - Mine did a similar thing. The Consumer unit and Hi-Fi sit at opposite ends of the house. It was a lot simpler running the cable up to the loft from the garage via a built in bedroom wardrobe (in trunking), running along the length of the loft and then dropping down an outside wall to the socket in the lounge via black conduit.
Me too. I used 4mm CY which is screened as well (earthed at the CU). Didn’t belong to the Forum then. No separate CU either. Only 20A Mechanical Circuit Breaker with 30 mA CU RCD.
Happy enough with the sound. Plenty of other pitfalls from other nasties in the room, but most have been removed or can be turned off.
The sparks I have found does do audio work among other things - but he is insisting so far that a separate cu is not needed.
I’m not sure how many radials he has done.
My 30 year old wiring which is perfect good as tested more recently would have required isolation switches at the meter box if a third CU was added. A bigger Henley block alone was not an option 3 years ago. So I didn’t. Maybe when I need new CUs to 2019 regs.
Choice is yours. Not really sure how much real isolation from noisy ring mains etc a dedicated CU gives. Remove the sources of noise and then you are left with the neighbours who in my case are 40m away at least via the mains cables. Bad luck for those in semis or apartments.
Yes I agree with that Phil. You can do all the fancy electrical isolation work you like and have your hifi running off its own CU, cabling, Henley Blocks etc but if you live on a street in a city you are ultimately sharing the mains with everyone else and noise will be there. Isolation from noise in your own house certainly helps though and is as much as you can do.
My first attempt at a dedicated mains circuit was taken from the main consumer unit, and I was hard pushed to hear any difference at all in performance. I later added one with its own consumer unit, and that certainly improved things, so from my experience, I would say that it is worthwhile.
Hi Jim - you’re the one that is paying him for the work so i’d push to get the separate CU. As already mentioned this only needs to be a garage type. For the small additional cost, you’ll have done the best you can to give the system the best mains supply which will continue to give benefits as you upgrade the black boxes.
Personally, if your not going to have a proper dedicated CU system, your only going to get a half way house and waste a fair bit of money. Your system will still be prone to mains borne interference from domestic appliance, more RFI etc etc.
As I have previously contributed, I have extensive empiric experience in this area, believe me a dedicated CU is the way to go if it’s practically feasible.
It’s the cheap charger for the display that emits lots of RF. There has been lots on the new forum about RF. There are load of devices that generate RFI from LED lamps to wall warts. Just search this forum.
As for dedicated CUs, if it works for you ok. Fridges are problem, including those of neighbours.
