20 amp dedicated lines

The dedicated 20 amp lines have made no difference in the sound of my system. Have you tried to measure the room response?

Kal

Dedicated lines are a huge bang for the buck in terms of sonics and low noise, but I don't think your not having them is what's at the root of your particular problem. And all your equipment is first rate, except I might want to do different ICs, still, I don't think they're the problem either.

No, if I had to guess, it's those 35' speaker runs. Even with those great SS amps, 35 feet of (anything) speaker cable is going to reduce damping enough to tip the sonic balance toward the highs.

You need, IMESHO (in my ever so humble opinion) to get a really good pair of long ICs and a really short pair of speaker cables. And that applies even if you're running single ended (and not balanced.)

I suppose someone could argue the JC-1s aren't getting enough juice, but that would be easy enough to establish without putting in the dedicated circuits. Just go to Home Depot and get a couple of 20 or 30 foot extension cords of at least 12 AWG (preferably 10 AWG) and plug each JC into different house (15A) circuits and see what happens. (You can always return the cords, HD is very nice about that.)

Proper line conditioning is an absolute must. So are ics and scs that minimize time smear.

The dedicated 20 amp lines will essentialy provide two benefits:

1) Minimize any harmful AC noise that is generated within your home ie refrigerator motors, microwave ovens, dimmer switches, etc..

2) Help endure that your amplifier has enough juice to more dynamically and realistically reproduce dynamic passages. A very big plus.

Dedicated lines will do nothing to filter out the AC noise in the lines coming in from the street. Everybody has this problem to one good degree or another and the only cure is proper line conditioning or components that have attempted to address the filtering issue inside the component but not both.

Your best bet is to audition a number of line-conditioners because quite frankly there some to many that simply aren't worth owning.

-IMO

I think the only way to find and solve your problem is to do some process of elimination things, first I'd move the amps close to the speakers and try some Rat Shack 12 gauge speaker wire just to see if thoses 35' wires are causing problems, next I would do some more speaker positioning and adjust cross overs, and the Home Depot cords are a good idea too. All these things will cost next to nothing and a bit of your time. I would spend some time on speaker placement and cross over adjustments as this can be one of the most PITA things to get right!

My two dedicated 20 amp lines, with FIM-880 outlets, did improve the bass. My friend the electrician, not an audiophile, even noticed it.

However, I don't think electrical is your problem. I recently had a similar condition, i.e., lean sound with a lack of bass, that was caused by the two 12ax7 Mullard gain tubes in my phono preamp subtly degrading over time (one year) until it became so pronounced I inquired about it.

I never would have guessed it was the tubes. I had two Electro-Harmonix 12ax7's on hand and swapped them into the phono preamp. Musical nirvana! I had no idea how far the sound had degraded until then. Everything came back, the meat and body of the music, the soundstage even improved.

I also found another audiophile who routinely changes the tubes in his preamp for the same problem. Perhaps the Mullards both went bad in a subtle manner and the EH tubes won't. I know I'll be aware of this, and swap out tubes just to check them in about a year.