Improvements to mains [ongoing]

[Rocker]

My mains distribution block was one of the very old Russ Andrews six way blocks with hardwired mains cable. Served me well for years. When I replaced the mains wall socket with a socket that was breathed on by Russ Andrews I was surprised by the sound improvement. This is hard to credit. Inspired by this success I decided to build a distribution board that had two twin Russ Andrews sockets and an IEC input socket and use a block of bog oak that I had in the garage. Cutting the bog oak [which I believe is upwards of a thousand years old!] proved to be a 'challenge' as was planing and sanding it. I hoped to eliminate as much metal from the distribution board as possible and ended up using two small metal plates that are screwed to the wood to hold the sockets. I routed the board to take the sockets and drilled holes for the wires [in the style of electric guitar wiring]. If cutting the board was difficult, routing was nearly impossible! I roughed out the routs with a Forstner bit in my bench mounted drill press [bought from Aldi] and finished off the job with a router. The two routs took the best part of a day. Eventually I got the board built and spent an afternoon with AndyS listening to his system as he made up silver cables to complete the internal wiring. I fitted three spikes on the underside as the board would be sitting on a carpeted concrete floor. The grain of the timber made finishing the block very difficult but I sanded away until my arms hurt and covered up the rest with a generous covering of beeswax.

In use I was surprised to hear a cleaning up of the sound of my system which got better as the silver internal wires and the copper IEC lead from the wall ran in. Definitely worth the effort.

Next and the most significant upgrade I could make to the electrical system in our house. I installed [actually an electrician friend did most of the hard work for me] a dedicated mains supply for the hi-fi system. And a seperate RCBO in its own box for the hi-fi. The standard mains socket has smallish connections that prevented my original choice of two * 6 sq. mm t&e cables being used and as 4 sq mm t&e could not be got for love or money, we used 3 [three] 2.5 sq. mm t&e plus a single 2.5 sq mm earth wire to supply the electical power to my system. All the earth wires are connected together at each end. Thus I have 7.5 sq. mm live and neutral and about 5.5 sq. mm earth which I hoped would reduce the mains impedence to an absolute minimum.

Sonically it was right on the button! The old mains cabling in my music room is a 2.5 sq. mm spur and it was interesting to compare the old to the new. The old sound was exciting and stimulating, the beat was very apparent [more body than from a Naim Audio system but in the same vein] and the stereo imagery very good. The new showed up the compression that made the old sound so exciting. Hard to believe that a mains cable can cause compression but to my ears it does. The stereo image gained greater depth and it seemed that I had moved back a few rows of seats from the performers. Townes van Zandt would not be my first choice in audiophile sound but definitely he sounds more natural and 'there' than through the old mains cable. Result is that I can play the system louder and not be overwhelmed by the sound and amazingly play it at much lower volume and not lose the music in the process. I have no idea if the extra copper to the socket from the RCBO or the extra earth cables or both together are contribiting to the sound improvement.

Highly reccommended and for the cost of a decent pair of interconnects, an absolute steal. I could not imagine any piece of hardware or cable giving as much music for so little outlay.

[cybot]

Well done Tom! Long may you continue to enjoy the improvements....

[Ken Moreland]

It's the bog oak , Tom, now we'll all want it!
KM

[cybot]

It's the bog oak , Tom, now we'll all want it!
KM

LOL :-)))))

[Fran]

Any chance of a few pics?


Fran

[giant haystacks]

I have to do something similar i have been researching and was told that the older fusewire box that you would get in an old mobile home and bore the holes out for larger cables and there are companys in england who do silver plating -get this done
the newer consumer units have a rcd safety device which is fluctuating up and down all the time which means your hifi power supplies are fluctuating
if you can get a 8-10 foot 3 inch copper pipe and make a spear like point and drive it into the ground it does not have to be far from the house -a digger bucket would save a lot of sledging
the spear like point will allow it to bend and continue on
connect your earth wire here for your hifi and disconnect the house earth -reason being everything will be using your strong earth and you will have worse hifi
you can hose the middle of the hollow pipe and keep the earth strong
I havent done any of this yet but i am moving into a new house so i will
i think we should all contribute on this subject

[james]

There is a lot of info on this topic on the internet. Some people recommend running multiple spurs to the hi-fi and some recommend running everything off just one ..

If I was getting it done I would run multiple feeds -- the main cost is the labour and it is better to have two feeds and only use one rather than having one feed and wishing you had two.

My hi-fi is on a separate ring main that I just use for the hi-fi : it uses just ordinary 2.5 sq mm twin+earth and the hifi is plugged into an industrial type mk unswitched 13-amp twin socket. If I was doing it again I would probably have specified cooker cable [6 sq mm].

There are arguments about spur versus ring main ..


Here's a link to get started http://www.decdun.me.uk/powersupplies.html


james

[Rocker]

Any chance of a few pics?
Fran

Not the most exciting object to photograph but here it is:



In use



Top view



Underside view

[Rocker]

My hi-fi is on a separate ring main that I just use for the hi-fi : it uses just ordinary 2.5 sq mm twin+earth and the hifi is plugged into an industrial type mk unswitched 13-amp twin socket. If I was doing it again I would probably have specified cooker cable [6 sq mm].
james

I decided against a 6 sq. mm t&E ring main due to the fact that two 6 sq. mm wires would not fit into the connections of a 13 amp socket. And from reading old issues of Hi-Fi+, it seems that a ring main sounds better than a spur. No idea why it should.

[Rocker]

the newer consumer units have a rcd safety device which is fluctuating up and down all the time which means your hifi power supplies are fluctuating

One must be careful not to endanger people in the house by ignoring or circumventing the electricial regulations. Such actions might invalidate your house insurance too. When dealing with electricity it is prudent to get the work done by a qualified electrician.