My room is finally done, with thanks to Kingrex!

tony22

Well-Known Member
Nov 4, 2019
557
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This post has been a long time in the making. My sound room, short of equipment placement and sound treatment, is now complete. I’d like to thank everyone here who, knowingly or not, helped me with various comments I’d read over the years about you all improving your own rooms.

Most especially I’d like to thank @Kingrex for his power distribution design for my room. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

For the last almost 40 years as an audiophile my listening space was always a compromise - usually a family room, often with poor acoustic possibilities. My last space in my old house, for example was a wonderfully sized 17’ x 24’ x 8’, but was a disaster otherwise. Wall mirror and fireplace on one side, half height wall leading into the kitchen on another, a ceiling drop header halfway between the listener and the speakers, one speaker back firing into a corner, the other into an open space. I’m honestly amazed that I was able to get any sort of impressive sound in an arrangement like this (not really, I’ve gotten reasonably good at this over the years! ;) :) ).

With my retirement came a new home, with a 14’ x 16’ x 9’ space that I had selected for my new dedicated sound room. Some of you reading this may recall a year or so ago my discussion about the possibility of merging two other rooms, which would have given me a bigger 14’ x 23’ space, but I decided against that for several reasons. That approach would have yielded, once again, a non-ideal space IMO. One outside wall on one side, one inside wall on the other, and an asymmetrical wall behind the speakers. On top of all that, the AC compresser is right outside that part of the house, and the laundry room in the room behind the speaker wall. But the big decision maker for me was putting the first, interim, listening setup in this 14’ x 16’ room. With three exterior walls (left, right, speaker) and symmetry, it sounded - even on initial listening - absolutely wonderful. Beautifully even spatially, excellent frequency balance, very satisfying low end performance… it was enough for me to drive my decision.

Here in the first pic is the room in its “first year” interim listening form. Even my audio friends who came to listen liked what they heard (although I suspect the Pass gear and the VSA E SEs had a lot to do with that :D).

I contacted Rex and we worked out a solution for providing the room with six dedicated 20A circuits. It involved doing a run directly from my outside box to a new dedicated subpanel. We did not feed this from the house subpanel. I purchased most of the material myself after discussion and concurrence from Rex. NM-B 2 AWG copper with an 8 AWG solid copper ground was used from the outside box to the new subpanel, which is located in the hallway just outside my sound room. The box and its innards was supplied by Rex, along with the specially wound triple 10 AWG solid core THHN used for each circuit run. Each circuit was run in its own 1/2” “Smurf” tube. All outlet boxes are plastic - no additional ground points in metal outlet boxes. As the three exterior walls have very little room behind the drywall, those runs were fed into Wiremold raceways and into surface mount Wiremold boxes. All boxes are very large to deal with the hard to wrestle solid core 10 gauge. The wire goes directly into 6 CruzeFIRST Maestro outlets. I don’t want to get into an outlet fight , but in my own testing of Furutech, Oyiade, other outlets, and Maestros, I liked these the best for my system. I can get into how I made that decision, if asked. The next several pics show some of the electrical aspects.

As to the room, yes it will be treated, but I went with a wall to wall carpet, which is over an 8 pound pad, which itself is over a sound dampening underlayment. I discovered how useful this was during my year of temporary listening in this space. I originally had two 8x10 rugs covering most of the floor, but heard the improvement immediately when I pulled the equipment out and put underlayment under these rugs. So that was on the list even with the new carpet. The French doors are Jeld-wen ProCore solid core doors. No hollow core doors for this room! The last pics show the underlayment and the room in its finished form.

Oh. I kept the old electrical circuit from the main subpanel in place. It now gives me a completely independent circuit for the fan, lights, accessories, etc. I thought that was pretty clever of me. :)

So those are the highlights to the whole story. I was fortunate to have had a great electrical company do my work. The owner of the company and master electrician for my job were both very interested in this “not your every day” electrical job, but most importantly were willing to work with me collaboratively. It was a good partnership.

I know I don’t have the grandest of systems, or rooms, compared to some here on WBF (and believe me I’ve drooled over some of them!), but for me it checks all the boxes. I’m waiting for my Adona rack before it all goes together back into the new room. Special thanks to Rex for his expertise! Rex, I hand it over to you for anything you’d care to add.
 

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Last edited:

Blue58

Well-Known Member
Jan 20, 2013
890
675
1,155
London, UK
A bit late to the party I know but could the panel have outputs on the opposite side to the input, holes and grommets easily added, making a much more simple wiring arrangement? Also, lining the panel box with an RFI material should help Imo.
A question too, does the ‘Smurf’ tubing accumulate static and if so shouldn’t this be grounded?

btw, that neutral wire is a bit exposed
 

tony22

Well-Known Member
Nov 4, 2019
557
239
133
62
A bit late to the party I know but could the panel have outputs on the opposite side to the input, holes and grommets easily added, making a much more simple wiring arrangement? Also, lining the panel box with an RFI material should help Imo.
A question too, does the ‘Smurf’ tubing accumulate static and if so shouldn’t this be grounded?

btw, that neutral wire is a bit exposed

I’m afraid not. All of the wiring goes through the attic (here in FL), and the wall where the box is located has just about zero room to try and U-turn wires from the bottom of the box back around to shoot up to the attic. I had considered that, but it was really not a possible option.

Not sure about Smurf and static. I don’t think they generate or collect static, but I’ll have to defer to @Kingrex for this. He indicated I did not have to have the Smurf stuff grounded from a normal shock hazard perspective, but it’s a good question.

Should I be concerned about the slight exposure on the neutral? We have a good inspector in my area. He’s very very thorough and knows the codes and practices very well. He did not call this out during rough-in inspection.
 

Blue58

Well-Known Member
Jan 20, 2013
890
675
1,155
London, UK
Some things you just can’t get around, similar problem here.
As long as it passed inspection that’s fine. I’m sure mine wouldn’t.

Good luck on the rest of the install.

Blue58
 

Ron Resnick

Site Co-Owner, Administrator
Jan 24, 2015
16,017
13,346
2,665
Beverly Hills, CA
Congratulations, Tony, on completing the electrical infrastructure of the room! Everything looks great!
 
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Kingrex

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2019
2,800
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Thanks Tony. I'm glad you found good installers who take pride in their work.

The panel is damped appropriately. 2 types of polymers. I would not fill the inside of a panel with product.

Not sure what the neutral is exposed means.

Never thought about wrapping EMT in a copper wire like we do with plastic dust collector tubing. But there is no air velocity in the tube with particles traveling inside. And the tubing is connected to a metal can. I would assume the same could be said of PVC.

If someone wants to run metal I am happy to help. Its more complex and very time consuming. It takes labor and materials for $20 a foot to $65 a foot.
Rex
 

tony22

Well-Known Member
Nov 4, 2019
557
239
133
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Congratulations, Tony, on completing the electrical infrastructure of the room! Everything looks great!

Thank you, Ron. Your own travels in getting a sound room together have been interesting and enlightening.
 

tony22

Well-Known Member
Nov 4, 2019
557
239
133
62
Damon, it should be reassembled in a bit less than two weeks. My new equipment rack should be ready toward the end of next week.
 

gshelley

Member Sponsor
Jan 10, 2011
83
25
923
Austin, TX
Congrats! I’m sure the room ans system will sound great.
 

gleeds

Industry Expert
May 29, 2018
754
1,207
235
Kingrex, if you would not mind weighing in:)

I'm curious about your view of running AC power line cable inside a flexible steel conduit, especially when multiple lines are involved. My past experience indicates that it is essential for crosstalk noise isolation when numerous dedicated lines are running in a parallel or near parallel environment. In addition, the flexible jacket eliminates bending steel pipe and is easier to maneuver. However, some purists have suggested encapsulating the wire chokes dynamics, etc., and who wants to trade dynamics for a lower noise due to increased shielding?
 

MarkusBarkus

Well-Known Member
Feb 6, 2021
991
1,632
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@gleeds @Kingrex will surely have an opinion to share. I think he prefers those smurf tubes, but for what it's worth, I have a 35' run of #10 stranded THHN, twisted up and run in FMC (flexible metallic conduit) that sounds excellent. No loss of dynamics, IMO, although that line feeds a TT7, with everything on that device. I wanted to get some shielding on this line since it passes through a wire-rich environment. Although the twist-up wires would help that too.

I did test this before adding the TT7 and I found it to be a positive result.

Now lest's see what Rex sez. If he's the abbott of the monastery, I'm the kid sweeping the leaves. Or Bud Abbott (if you're old enough to perceive that as a joke).
 

Kingrex

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2019
2,800
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I honestly have to test this more. I have wire at my home in steel and I would not say I have congestion or loss of dynamics. Last time I was listening I had a hard time distinguishing it from Oyaide. But then again, Oyaide is shielded. I have heard more clarity and less hum type injected noise rearranging cords behind my rack. But now we have signal cables back there and if they pick up noise, it will be amplified.

I have put 2 pair of twisted wire in a single pipe. I have a project in the works right now doing this. The owner wants to keep the outside of the house looking nice. On the one I did in the past, I measured 0 MV of potential between the hot and neutral at the duplex.

Best practice would be to keep audio power wires at least 4" from any other wire. If I were in a big mess of wires, I might run it in steel. But you have to be very careful how you bond that steel and you have to use isolated duplex. Steel is a receipt for ground loops.
 
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gleeds

Industry Expert
May 29, 2018
754
1,207
235
@gleeds @Kingrex will surely have an opinion to share. I think he prefers those smurf tubes, but for what it's worth, I have a 35' run of #10 stranded THHN, twisted up and run in FMC (flexible metallic conduit) that sounds excellent. No loss of dynamics, IMO, although that line feeds a TT7, with everything on that device. I wanted to get some shielding on this line since it passes through a wire-rich environment. Although the twist-up wires would help that too.

I did test this before adding the TT7 and I found it to be a positive result.

Now lest's see what Rex sez. If he's the abbott of the monastery, I'm the kid sweeping the leaves. Or Bud Abbott (if you're old enough to perceive that as a joke).
Loved and miss Bud Abbot!

Yes, let's see what the Rex says but glad you confirmed a good result through a long run and challenging collateral environment.
 

Cellcbern

VIP/Donor
Jul 30, 2015
1,222
726
585
70
Washington, DC
This post has been a long time in the making. My sound room, short of equipment placement and sound treatment, is now complete. I’d like to thank everyone here who, knowingly or not, helped me with various comments I’d read over the years about you all improving your own rooms.

Most especially I’d like to thank @Kingrex for his power distribution design for my room. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

For the last almost 40 years as an audiophile my listening space was always a compromise - usually a family room, often with poor acoustic possibilities. My last space in my old house, for example was a wonderfully sized 17’ x 24’ x 8’, but was a disaster otherwise. Wall mirror and fireplace on one side, half height wall leading into the kitchen on another, a ceiling drop header halfway between the listener and the speakers, one speaker back firing into a corner, the other into an open space. I’m honestly amazed that I was able to get any sort of impressive sound in an arrangement like this (not really, I’ve gotten reasonably good at this over the years! ;) :) ).

With my retirement came a new home, with a 14’ x 16’ x 9’ space that I had selected for my new dedicated sound room. Some of you reading this may recall a year or so ago my discussion about the possibility of merging two other rooms, which would have given me a bigger 14’ x 23’ space, but I decided against that for several reasons. That approach would have yielded, once again, a non-ideal space IMO. One outside wall on one side, one inside wall on the other, and an asymmetrical wall behind the speakers. On top of all that, the AC compresser is right outside that part of the house, and the laundry room in the room behind the speaker wall. But the big decision maker for me was putting the first, interim, listening setup in this 14’ x 16’ room. With three exterior walls (left, right, speaker) and symmetry, it sounded - even on initial listening - absolutely wonderful. Beautifully even spatially, excellent frequency balance, very satisfying low end performance… it was enough for me to drive my decision.

Here in the first pic is the room in its “first year” interim listening form. Even my audio friends who came to listen liked what they heard (although I suspect the Pass gear and the VSA E SEs had a lot to do with that :D).

I contacted Rex and we worked out a solution for providing the room with six dedicated 20A circuits. It involved doing a run directly from my outside box to a new dedicated subpanel. We did not feed this from the house subpanel. I purchased most of the material myself after discussion and concurrence from Rex. NM-B 2 AWG copper with an 8 AWG solid copper ground was used from the outside box to the new subpanel, which is located in the hallway just outside my sound room. The box and its innards was supplied by Rex, along with the specially wound triple 10 AWG solid core THHN used for each circuit run. Each circuit was run in its own 1/2” “Smurf” tube. All outlet boxes are plastic - no additional ground points in metal outlet boxes. As the three exterior walls have very little room behind the drywall, those runs were fed into Wiremold raceways and into surface mount Wiremold boxes. All boxes are very large to deal with the hard to wrestle solid core 10 gauge. The wire goes directly into 6 CruzeFIRST Maestro outlets. I don’t want to get into an outlet fight , but in my own testing of Furutech, Oyiade, other outlets, and Maestros, I liked these the best for my system. I can get into how I made that decision, if asked. The next several pics show some of the electrical aspects.

As to the room, yes it will be treated, but I went with a wall to wall carpet, which is over an 8 pound pad, which itself is over a sound dampening underlayment. I discovered how useful this was during my year of temporary listening in this space. I originally had two 8x10 rugs covering most of the floor, but heard the improvement immediately when I pulled the equipment out and put underlayment under these rugs. So that was on the list even with the new carpet. The French doors are Jeld-wen ProCore solid core doors. No hollow core doors for this room! The last pics show the underlayment and the room in its finished form.

Oh. I kept the old electrical circuit from the main subpanel in place. It now gives me a completely independent circuit for the fan, lights, accessories, etc. I thought that was pretty clever of me. :)

So those are the highlights to the whole story. I was fortunate to have had a great electrical company do my work. The owner of the company and master electrician for my job were both very interested in this “not your every day” electrical job, but most importantly were willing to work with me collaboratively. It was a good partnership.

I know I don’t have the grandest of systems, or rooms, compared to some here on WBF (and believe me I’ve drooled over some of them!), but for me it checks all the boxes. I’m waiting for my Adona rack before it all goes together back into the new room. Special thanks to Rex for his expertise! Rex, I hand it over to you for anything you’d care to add.
Why would you have six dedicated lines in a small room like this? Are you not planning to use a power conditioner?
 
Last edited:

Sampajanna

Well-Known Member
Apr 1, 2021
651
756
170
Show us the final product!
 
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