Iām planning a few upgrades to my in house power, and one of those is going to be focused on a better house ground, itās a long shot but has anyone ever tried a chemical/electrolytic ground for audio use? Theyāre becoming more common and it had me wondering if the theoretical advantages of them would end up bringing any potential gains to a hifi setup
Also for those curious I had done some testing for in wall power cable, and personally I think the best bang for buck in wall is actually a slow twist of high quality solid core 10awg, I used southwire thhn and itās been great. I compared to a test run of JPS in wall, and some sketchy oyaide and while those two were marginally better in my setup, they did not give enough of a difference for me to justify the price. All were a noticeable improvement of whatever standard thing was ran previously. I actually did also test running 8awg stranded, but found that to me 10awg solid was the best balance of everything (I actually felt that 8 was sort of forced vs the solid 10). Keep in mind I did this testing outside of the wall on my audio subpanel which you should very much not do, but I was not going to pull multiple runs to test otherwise lol
I also now wonder about the claim of ājust use a hospital grade outletā after doing some quick tests of stuff, I kinda now personally feel like thatās not a great idea with how tightly it grips the cable (concerning wear marks on plugs) and the sort of focuses those have (made to be corrosion resistant and durable, but thatās not something thatās typically a positive in audio in terms of sonics). So far what I tried the most impactful option was an oyaide r0 which is just uncoated copper from what I know, and that outperformed a furutech gtx for my personal tastes, but what really surprised me is actually trying different wall plates and housings, I wasnāt expecting anything but I honestly think now that something thatās made to absorb vibrations and dampen does a lot for improving sound, I guess I never really thought about it but cabling can be a great place for vibration to travel easily (can be more noticeable in recording actually). Same with making sure the internal wire in the wall had some points to deal with vibration. This all feels really stupid lol. If I had to guess on the hospital thing, maybe itās a skin effect thing where the more + thicker contact surfaces you have (especially if thereās multiple) thereās higher skin effect. Maybe thatās also why plating isnāt always a good thing, although I think thatās likely going to depend more on the cable you plug into it and itās plating
Another realization throughout all of this has been the whole āyouāre listening to thousands of feet of non audio ac cable so who cares about the last few feet you connect to your setupā makes 0 sense and I donāt really know why I didnāt catch that sooner, because Iām realizing that I did fall victim to that somewhat lol. Thatās just not really how it works, those last few feet to the amp are doing a lot of the heavy lifting since electrons donāt flow through the cable, theyāre just rapidly moving back and forth. Goes beyond me in terms of how electric fields work, same with the idea that things are traveling on the edge/slightly outside? of the cable and stuff, poynting vectors and all that, dunno lol. This isnāt to say that optimizing further and further back isnāt worthwhile, but I do think you can get a lot of the way there within the last 6 feet, and going back is moreso to just increase the potential available to that last run. A power cable and inlet are kinda the weakest potential link in terms of both wire quality and having a mismash of connections and connectors, it would be best to just wire directly into the wall going directly to the breaker but we donāt do that for, safety I guess. While we think of them as the ālast mile,ā theyāre also the first for whatever component theyāre connected to.
Another quick note, I also fell into the trap thinking that I wanted to have the shortest possible power cables, but thatās also not true, shorty cables actually might be worse than longer ones when it comes to AC for how they interact with the power supply in what theyāre connected to (sometimes acting as an extension of the psu depending on design), and actually a longer cable means more buffer and isolation from a potentially subpar connection and more chance to interact with and be impacted by the cableās characteristics (typically in a positive way from my experience). Itās also more chance for some power cables to block/filter noise coming out of a power supply that could pollute other nearby connected components. Not that Iām going to run out and buy long ass power cables since thereās a point where you lose more than you gain, but I havenāt really worried about length as much anymore aside from just manageability and isolating them from the floor/vibrations/other cables. And theyāre fuckin expensive for good cables lol, so thatās another practical limiter to length
Not that I really needed reassurance in this stuff, but I never really thought about the why because apparently thatās just a taboo thing to do lol. In hindsight a lot of this is obvious if I had stopped to think about it, and how it can impact my system, apologies to the people who read this and go yeah duh lol. Sort of frustrating to realize all this now, and see how unoptimized my last setup was, even when I was throwing in things like jps in wall and other tweaks without really understanding why I was doing so, and properly testing between things. If I was redoing a setup to my previous level again, I would basically start from my incoming AC and move back more than anything else. For my current setup right now? Itās not really truly best value to do all these things at the moment, especially when I donāt think Iāll ever get a setup like my last again, but it feels like some level of irritation, closure, and somehow borderline relief that thereās more to learn and optimize to get a truly good result. All of it is confusing, and both makes me want to learn and stay away from power in the future lol, itās at least been fun exploring this more than I did before. Iām going to get zapped eventually though so I should stop while Iām ahead lol. Has any of this reduced the buzz? Nope, but it still sounded better lol.
Iād like to redo my panel(s) but thatās too costly atm)