Quality outlet for dedicated 20 amp line?

[lovinthehd]

An interesting side note:
An ASR thread involved a guy swearing that his Studio 530 sounds different when he plugged in through the HF binding posts rather than the LF posts... He admitted to trying different setups including bi-something-ing them... and somehow decided that they sound "more present" plugged in through the HF...
Anyway, many have questioned his approach as you would expect.
I brought up the fact that it is likely that something was not seated or tightened properly when he started, which got rectified in his fooling around.
I was reminded of Gene testing his Kimber Cables with locking Bananas and also testing what happens when the bananas are loose. He very clearly demonstrated how the signal went from strong and clean to irregular.

At the same time, I found a nightlight we have that wasn't working properly and I gave it a little bump only to see it light up again. I pulled it out with virtually no resistance and plugged it back into the other outlet of that pair and it works fine.

Moral of the story is that Power Outlets (or ANY electrical connection) do matter insofar as the contact between conductors is strong and tight. A loose connection will suffer from poor performance. Household outlets can and will fail over time, especially with repeated use.

I would add that if OP's original lines were already taxed and perhaps had a failing wall outlet, he would quite possibly notice a problem in the performance of his Amp.
It is possible that the outlet or the line would be at fault. By changing to a dedicated line and new outlets, he now has as clean a pathway as his household electrical network can possibly provide.

Just thoughts as I wait for my morning Espressos (Espressi?) to fully engage. View attachment 56350

Reminds me of a house I was renting a while back where the dryer went out, so called the landlord to see if it was perhaps still under warranty, and it was. He decided to just swap the unit out on his own (rather than deal with the warranty), came over and installed the new machine with two guys to help carry into the somewhat difficult laundry room (a steep driveway and a coupla sets of stairs)....he cuts the cord literally on the old machine, they pull it out and put in the new one, plug it in and it still not working....after some further investigation it was the receptacle just not gripping the unit's plug......so the two guys helping on the delivery got a free dryer that at that point was already in their truck, that would work fine with the installation of a new cord , and the landlord could have just spent the few bucks on a new receptacle instead....but it didn't occur to any of us it was the receptacle.

 

[ryanosaur]

I know many of us react (usually poorly) to the flowery audiophool prose you'd expect from a snobby publication. At the same time, it is absolutely possible that an audible difference was experienced by our friend.

My position is that he not only got new outlets, but also dedicated lines for his audio gear... Kudos!
I'm hoping to have the opportunity to run some dedicated lines to my room by next year. Not expecting a change in SQ. But when I get my Subs bumping, it will be nice to know I won't shut down the circuit!

 

[highfigh]

Reminds me of a house I was renting a while back where the dryer went out, so called the landlord to see if it was perhaps still under warranty, and it was. He decided to just swap the unit out on his own (rather than deal with the warranty), came over and installed the new machine with two guys to help carry into the somewhat difficult laundry room (a steep driveway and a coupla sets of stairs)....he cuts the cord literally on the old machine, they pull it out and put in the new one, plug it in and it still not working....after some further investigation it was the receptacle just not gripping the unit's plug......so the two guys helping on the delivery got a free dryer that at that point was already in their truck, that would work fine with the installation of a new cord , and the landlord could have just spent the few bucks on a new receptacle instead....but it didn't occur to any of us it was the receptacle.

I wonder if testing the voltage inside of the dryer, at the connections, occurred to them.

 

[lovinthehd]

I wonder if testing the voltage inside of the dryer, at the connections, occurred to them.

Nope, just tried to operate the unit once before cutting the cord....altho I had a multimeter he coulda borrowed....think he just wanted to be done and gone overall. I believe he did his own original installation work, he built the house himself. That was the first time I'd run into a receptacle issue like that.....I bought an older house that I live in now and several receptacles are not gripping, have replaced a couple....

 

[mtrot]

An interesting side note:
An ASR thread involved a guy swearing that his Studio 530 sounds different when he plugged in through the HF binding posts rather than the LF posts... He admitted to trying different setups including bi-something-ing them... and somehow decided that they sound "more present" plugged in through the HF...
Anyway, many have questioned his approach as you would expect.
I brought up the fact that it is likely that something was not seated or tightened properly when he started, which got rectified in his fooling around.
I was reminded of Gene testing his Kimber Cables with locking Bananas and also testing what happens when the bananas are loose. He very clearly demonstrated how the signal went from strong and clean to irregular.

At the same time, I found a nightlight we have that wasn't working properly and I gave it a little bump only to see it light up again. I pulled it out with virtually no resistance and plugged it back into the other outlet of that pair and it works fine.

Moral of the story is that Power Outlets (or ANY electrical connection) do matter insofar as the contact between conductors is strong and tight. A loose connection will suffer from poor performance. Household outlets can and will fail over time, especially with repeated use.

I would add that if OP's original lines were already taxed and perhaps had a failing wall outlet, he would quite possibly notice a problem in the performance of his Amp.
It is possible that the outlet or the line would be at fault. By changing to a dedicated line and new outlets, he now has as clean a pathway as his household electrical network can possibly provide.

Just thoughts as I wait for my morning Espressos (Espressi?) to fully engage. View attachment 56350

Yeah, as this house was built in 1987, I've wondered if the connections on the outlets I've been using for the A/V system, both at the outlets and at the breaker panel, have deteriorated or loosened to some degree. Also, they seem to have put way too many outlets and lights on the circuits in the kitchen area, and I believe that the outlets I've been using for the A/V system are also on one of those circuits. Also, the laundry room is on the other side of the wall of the outlets in question.

In any event, as you state, running the new dedicated 20 amp lines should give me the best power to my A/V system that I can get, and hopefully a bit better than before. As to the sound, it is definitely better than before, in the ways that I described.

As to your other point about cable connections, I also have noticed that, after a matter of months of use, simply removing and re-inserting my speaker banana plugs seems to improve the immediacy of the sound a bit. They don't seem to fit all that tight and perhaps they don't fit tight enough.

 

[highfigh]

¿Que?

15A circuits are sized for that load, not 20A. What wasn't clear?

 

[highfigh]

Yeah, as this house was built in 1987, I've wondered if the connections on the outlets I've been using for the A/V system, both at the outlets and at the breaker panel, have deteriorated or loosened to some degree. Also, they seem to have put way too many outlets and lights on the circuits in the kitchen area, and I believe that the outlets I've been using for the A/V system are also on one of those circuits. Also, the laundry room is on the other side of the wall of the outlets in question.

In any event, as you state, running the new dedicated 20 amp lines should give me the best power to my A/V system that I can get, and hopefully a bit better than before. As to the sound, it is definitely better than before, in the ways that I described.

As to your other point about cable connections, I also have noticed that, after a matter of months of use, simply removing and re-inserting my speaker banana plugs seems to improve the immediacy of the sound a bit. They don't seem to fit all that tight and perhaps they don't fit tight enough.

A dedicated circuit for AV is a good thing because it's not shared by anything else and in my house, built in 1946, half of the second floor feed goes to a ceiling junction box in a hallway and is distributed to the East half. I found out by disconnecting the light fixture and lost those outlets. Totally crappy wiring. I could replace the feed, if needed.

 

[ryanosaur]

15A circuits are sized for that load, not 20A. What wasn't clear?

Wow. Replying after 20 months?!
We already discussed why I replied as I did. Thought this was worked out. *shrugs

 

[mtrot]

Update: Although I am happy with my 20 amp dedicated lines, they are coming from the same breaker panel as before. So, I still get a buzzing inside my Krell power amp when my wife runs her hair dryer in our bathroom on the other side of the house. Interestingly, the buzzing only occurs when using one of the two available speeds on the hair dryer. I guess I would optimally need to install a separate sub-panel to get rid of that, if even that would work.

 

[Verdinut]

Update: Although I am happy with my 20 amp dedicated lines, they are coming from the same breaker panel as before. So, I still get a buzzing inside my Krell power amp when my wife runs her hair dryer in our bathroom on the other side of the house. Interestingly, the buzzing only occurs when using one of the two available speeds on the hair dryer. I guess I would optimally need to install a separate sub-panel to get rid of that, if even that would work.

Wouldn't it be less costly to replace the hair dryer with a new one?

 

[highfigh]

Wow. Replying after 20 months?!
We already discussed why I replied as I did. Thought this was worked out. *shrugs

The notification bell showed that you replied. Not sure why it did that after so long.

 

[mtrot]

The notification bell showed that you replied. Not sure why it did that after so long.

Yeah, it was odd for me too.

 

[mtrot]

The notification bell showed that you replied. Not sure why it did that after so long.

She likes her hair dryer. Should this be happening at all?

 

[nicoleise]

She likes her hair dryer. Should this be happening at all?

It's likely electronically controlled. Older hair dryers typically have fx two steps of heat/fan speed on a mechanical switch. These do not contribute significant noise.

Modern, compact electronically controlled hair dryers instead use a heating element which is toggled on and off rapidly to get the desired temperature (PWM control). The issue with this is that to maintain a somewhat constant air temperature in this way, the cycle time must be very short, which means the load (the heating element) is turned on and off insanely often, and at the same time it's a fairly big load.

This is devastating to the quality of the electricity. For the same reason, many countries electrical grid operators actually have limits on the toggling interval of loads. It's often shown as a line chart where generally speaking the bigger the load, the less switching operations per hour is allowed.

But neither people designing hair dryers nor people buying them even know of the existence of such regulations.

I remember a electrician once asking me advice on flickering LED lights in their house. The lights would work perfectly, but when his wife used the hair dryer it would look like a thunder storm.

To a much lesser degree, I note the same in my workshop if using an electrical variable heat gun. The LED (non dimmed) fixtures in the ceiling will flicker slightly but clearly related to the heat gun.


You'll not be able to solve this, it's an inherent design flaw of the product. Even if you connected the dryer to a different sub panel (but on the same electrical line/supply to your house) you may still see the same effect although maybe reduced.

The obvious solution is to replace the hairdryer with something sensible or ban the simultaneous use of the amp and the dryer.

 

[mtrot]

It's likely electronically controlled. Older hair dryers typically have fx two steps of heat/fan speed on a mechanical switch. These do not contribute significant noise.

Modern, compact electronically controlled hair dryers instead use a heating element which is toggled on and off rapidly to get the desired temperature (PWM control). The issue with this is that to maintain a somewhat constant air temperature in this way, the cycle time must be very short, which means the load (the heating element) is turned on and off insanely often, and at the same time it's a fairly big load.

This is devastating to the quality of the electricity. For the same reason, many countries electrical grid operators actually have limits on the toggling interval of loads. It's often shown as a line chart where generally speaking the bigger the load, the less switching operations per hour is allowed.

But neither people designing hair dryers nor people buying them even know of the existence of such regulations.

I remember a electrician once asking me advice on flickering LED lights in their house. The lights would work perfectly, but when his wife used the hair dryer it would look like a thunder storm.

To a much lesser degree, I note the same in my workshop if using an electrical variable heat gun. The LED (non dimmed) fixtures in the ceiling will flicker slightly but clearly related to the heat gun.


You'll not be able to solve this, it's an inherent design flaw of the product. Even if you connected the dryer to a different sub panel (but on the same electrical line/supply to your house) you may still see the same effect although maybe reduced.

The obvious solution is to replace the hairdryer with something sensible or ban the simultaneous use of the amp and the dryer.

Thanks. Interestingly, this buzzing sound occurs inside the amp even if it's not powered on.

 

[lovinthehd]

Thanks. Interestingly, this buzzing sound occurs inside the amp even if it's not powered on.

So just typical transformer noise?

 

[Mikado463]

Thanks. Interestingly, this buzzing sound occurs inside the amp even if it's not powered on.

bee's nest ??

 

[TLS Guy]

Thanks. Interestingly, this buzzing sound occurs inside the amp even if it's not powered on.

That is because the core is vibrating to the monstrous ripple that hair dryer is putting on the AC circuit.

Those devices are DANGEROUS and should not be allowed.

They cause massive amounts of ripple as you are finding out. Even worse they cause a huge amount of neutral gouging. Homes not built recently have daisy chained neutrals, which makes devices like your wife's hair dryer a particular hazard. Codes have been changed in recent years to make daisy chained neutrals against the electrical code. If your wife won't get rid of that hair dryer, then you need to have your home rewired.

If my wife came home with one of those, it would be ordered returned and if not compliant, I would surreptitiously orchestrate a failure.

That would be a NOT in my home device and they same should apply in your home.

This discontinuous leads are causing significant issues for the power companies.

 

[mtrot]

Only the Krell amp does this. The dryer has no effect on my two AVR's or any other of my A/V equipment.

 

[lovinthehd]

Only the Krell amp does this. The dryer has no effect on my two AVR's or any other of my A/V equipment.

When I asked if it was perhaps normal transformer noise, was more thinking the hair dryer was off and it still hummed plus was more thinking of a standby mode than power completely disconnected, too. Wouldn't surprise me a boutique piece like a Krell might have issues others may not.....