How Dedicated Must a Dedicated Circuit Be?

Since my living room lights dimmed when I turned my amp on, I had my electrician neighbor run two Hubble outlets recommended by the Cable Co. down to, I believe one circuit breaker of their own, with regular Romex. The result was a big improvement, and no dimming lights, somewhat of a loss, as turning on the amp always impressed the neighbors. More than made up for by the improvement in sound. Now I dream of 2 circuit breakers and dividing up the amp and the rest of the system. How exactly do you get that lightbulb in before the rest of the system? Now they got those $50 outlets...and I thought $12.50 an outlet was a lot of money.

The #10 wire is the way to go.I would use solid conductor instead of stranded.Audioquest lit goes into detail, stranded verses solid.The reason you want to use #10 wire is due to voltage drop. the solid is harder to work with so use a deep rough in box.In regards to running 10\3 with ground romex for two circuits, you are using the two hot lines and the neutral [grounded conductor]This is called a three wire circuit.Each circuit is fed from a 20amp breaker.One, on one phase and the other circuit on the other phase.The white wire goes on the neutral\ground bar, in your electrical panel. The bare ground wire also goes here.NOTE this is for a house install. At the end where your receptacles are going, one circuit goes to one receptacle with the nuetral and ground.The other circuit goes to the other receptacle,using the same neutral and ground.Note you will need to make a joint for the neutral so you can have two seperate neutral[white color]one for each recept. Same for the bare ground wire.Now for the rub!When using this type of 3wire circuit, each recept will have a voltage potential of 120 volt.Just what you want right.But if you have a volt meter measure from the small straight blade hole of one recept to the other recept small straight blade.You will measure 220\230 volt.This normally is not any problem. But this is how it works. Lets plug two equal loads into each recept,say 5amps each.The neutral will will carry 0 amps back to your panel.The two loads are in series. This is called a balanced load.Hope Im not losing you.It`s the power companys transformer that does it.Now lets plug that power hungry Power Amp in one recept and your preamp in the other recept.The unbalanced load,amp,current, will travel back on the neutral.The difference is traveling through your power amp and preamp.Bottom line,if your using romex run two 10\2 w\ground romex cables. If you running conduit pull seperate neutral and ground for each circiut.I recommend putting both cicuit breakers on the same phase in your electrical panel.Hope this helps.

Rushton is cetainly correct about the outlets being in series and causing lots of distortion. That is why a dedicated line is dedicated to just one outlet. To get a taste for the difference, plug the rig into the first outlet in the chain and listen, and then the last. Big difference. But this only approximates the improvement with just one outlet hooked up directly to the service panel.