Least Controversial, Reasonably Priced AC Upgrades


Hello Everyone

At last, the light is appearing at the end of my house renovation tunnel, and -- fingers crossed -- I may actually be listening to music in my new living room before 2005.

Having spent every last penny on marriage, family, Subzero refrigerators etc, I am trying for the first time to upgrade the wiring a bit and protect the equipment against surges.

Despite my enthusiasm for this site and a pretty decent system, I remain firmly in the dark ages on power conditioners, high end power cords, outlets, surge protectors etc.

The place where we are we are moving in the country apparently has frequent power outages, especially in winter when falling branches down the lines.

I have read many heated debates about power conditioners etc with some of you saying that they actually WORSEN the sound, that I would like to start with a simple:

dedicated line?
Albert Porters wall outlets?
a chunky power strip inside my new 6' component rack on casters?
a surge protector (Monster Cable?) to protect all of the above in my newly flaky electical district?

Again, simple, effective, not wildly expensive please.

The idea is to have a moveable rack of equipment on casters that I can wheel from the corner of the room to my listening chair for easy access, which will be tethered to the wall by one power cord only and with long interconnects to the amp which will be located by the speakers.

The rest of the spaghetti mess will stay neatly inside the rack, concealed by a ventilated door.

Thank you in advance for all ideas and suggestions.
cwlondon
Not AFAIK. If I were doing my line again today I would use cryo-treated wire. That's about the only difference.
Four plugs... meaning, two double AC outlets? The short answer is yes, but one outlet would have to be daisy-chained from the other. That second outlet would have second grabs at the juice, so better to put your greediest component(s) -- the power amp(s) -- on the first plug.

If you mean four double plugs, well yes again, but the daisy chaining point applies in spades.