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Interconnects, speaker wire, power cords. Ask the Cable Guys.

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Original Message

RE: Braiding the AC mains feeding a power amp.

Posted by jea48 on December 5, 2016 at 21:48:13:
Hi Duster,

Thank you for responding to my posted message.

A guy on another audio forum built a new audio room and hired some "expert" to design the electrical system for the room. He is not happy with the sound from his system now.

He has a sub panel now.

He has several dedicated branch circuits installed.

All the circuits are installed in their own metal conduit. I am pretty sure, steel conduit. (Would not have been my choice. But maybe because of the electrical code in his area it may be required. Don't know.)

The guy says the branch circuit wiring installed in each conduit is braided together. The hot conductor, the neutral conductor, and the green insulated equipment grounding conductor.

My question is could this braided wire installed in a steel conduit be causing his problem. Especially for the power amp. To me even though the wiring is a branch circuit fed from the electrical panel it looks to me to be basically a shield braided cable. The 3 conductors are #12. I also think they are stranded wire. He didn't say if it is a factory braided assembly.

.

Here is his first post:

I had a custom room built and spared no expense. Hired a power consultant who designed a system with a 15KVa isolation transformer and a custom breaker panel that feeds only the audio room. System incorporates isolated grounds and IG outlets. The advantage I have is that I know how my system should sound because I only changed one piece of equipment from my old to new room. System is Wilson Alexandria, Boulder 2110 pre, 3060 amp (had 2060 before and they sound very similar) and full vivaldi stack. System had incredible detail and thunderous bass. Now has decent detail and soggy bass (hyperbole). After a year, I had the electrician take the isolation transformer out of the system and run a new line from the street to the breaker panel. Everything is much better now, but still has a layer of syrup over the presentation that shouldn't be there and loose bass. Room acoustics are a bit different, but the power is the biggest difference. What gives?

His second post. His response to mine:

In metal conduits. Single run of 12G braided wire in each conduit. Run from subpanel is <8 ft in all cases. Probably 20 or so lines coming of the subpanel. Don't know about the interconnects. There are 2 legs, but all my equipment fits on one leg. Old room had lines slowly added over time. Amp was running 240 in there as well. I believe it was wired with 10G solid core cable. There was a mix of metal and "plastic" conduits and boxes in the old room. ( BTW, had serious ground loops in the old room, but the Boulder gear was fairly impervious to it. I demoed a single ended Lamm amp and it buzzed like a fiend!) Using a mix of hubbell and voodoo (cryoed hubbell outlets) in new room. Plastic plates.

So what do you think? Any ideas?

Jim