Dedicated Mains Spur

[Steve]

Hi Folks,

Currently having some work done to the house, as in new kitchen, knocking out walls and joining rooms together, etc. (The kinda of stuff that the better half decides is necessary as payback for me deciding that purchasing Amati Futura's was necessary...)

Electrician was in today and a thought about the HiFi popped into my head.

Do many people have experience of running a dedicated mains spur from the fuse box to their HiFi? Has it brought any noticable benefits to the sonics? I'll have to get a quote from him to see how much but just wondering if it's worthwhile...

[tony]

Sure others will jump in but the cost of running say 6m sq to a single quality socket will not be crazy
price. MCB in a small separate enclosure is pittance. The highest cost is buying the cable. Still the cable should cost less than €100. you can buy it by the metre and Electricians get it at a big discount. A decent hifi socket afters if you need it costs €30-50.

If you can run it easily just do it as Ben Stiller would say.

[Ivor]

Do many people have experience of running a dedicated mains spur from the fuse box to their HiFi? Has it brought any noticable benefits to the sonics? I'll have to get a quote from him to see how much but just wondering if it's worthwhile...

As I was getting the house rewired anyway there was little or no extra cost. The thing about such benefits is that you don't know. That's the whole idea! I can tell you that every additional mains conditioner or mains lead has made no discernible difference so it must be pretty clean already. I didn't go for anything fancy. Slightly bigger mains cable (I could have gone siltect) and I specified MK unswitched double sockets. I just ran 2 double sockets but I should really have run more.

[Aleg]

At the Naim forum they consider it to be one of the major upgrades.

[jaybee]

apparently a dedicated ferrous earth spike is a good plan too.... not expensive either... you essentially run an earth cable to the garden and bury an off cut of re-bar bout two feet long a foot below the surface....

As Ivor pointed out, the marginal cost is minimal....

We got ethernet and sky+ routed throughout the house as well for not very much extra....

I have yet to try it all out, but for convenience listening iTunes over Ethernet eliminates all that annoying drop-out....

[Rocker]

I did it some years ago and it is definitely worth the effort. Perhaps the biggest improvement that can be expected is a lowering of compression - music sounds louder and less loud if you can follow that kind of thinking.

A limit in cable size is the socket connectors. 6.0 sq mm T&E is easily managed. But when you are at it, do get the electrician to add a 6.0 sq mm Earth cable [as well as the earth wire in the T&E] from the socket to the MCB board. That additional earth wire might be the real reason there is an improvement in sound quality when using a dedicated mains supply for the hi-fi system.

The cost is minimal so do it. Even if you cannot hear the benefit, you will know that you have done everything you can to get your system sounding as good as possible.

[Steve]

Thanks for the feedback gents. Think I'll definitely go ahead with it so. Must remember the earthing part as hadn't explicitly mentioned it to the Sparks. Will be interesting to hear if it brings any notable changes...

[james]

Another vote for a dedicated mains spur.

Some extra advice -- maybe run more than one independent spur [with separate bits in the fusebox]. Some people recommend one spur for digital [e.g. a pc] and another for analog. Others one spur for source [e.g. cd-player or pre-amp] and another for power [power-amp].

If you are geting the room rewired anyway consider channels to hold speaker cable for stereo and/or even home cinema.

james