John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Unfortunately I got Rod Gervais's book a little late for the noise concerns around high/low voltage wiring. I've wired in some outlets behind drywall so that it's not going to be so easy to undo what I did. I'm wondering how bad off I am...

I have 6 outlets where my mixing desk will go. I was planning to use these to power my monitors and my outboard. This was going to have it's own circuit breaker in my breaker panel. I have another 4 sets of outlets around the room for other things... amplifiers/keyboards/lamp. This was also going to have it's own circuit breaker in my breaker panel.

I have run the wiring high for one and low for the other. My issue is that I've decided that I'd rather keep my computer outside of my studio. I will have to run low voltage wiring from my computer to my converter box (as well as cables for my monitor and keyboard).

If I run this parallel, in-between the wiring I already have in place (so about 3 feet away from either wire I already have in place), am I going to run into noise problems? I will have to cross over (perpendicularly) the lower wire as well, but I should be able to keep them at least a foot apart where they cross each other.

My other question is around how many circuit breakers I should install? I will have wiring for my baseboard heat, my ventilation fan, the outlets behind the mixing desk, and the outlets around the room for amplifiers/keyboards/lamp.

I was thinking about having my ventilation fan/baseboard heat on one side of my panel (using the same circuit breaker) and all the other outlets (split between 2 circuit breakers) on the other side of my panel. Is this ideal? I do have the room in my breaker panel, but I wonder if i'm over-doing it? Or if I should also have my baseboard heaters and ventilation fan on separate circuit breakers?

If the AC power line uses both it's hot and neutral conductors and does not go to CFL bulbs or light dimmers or big SMPS power supplies, 1 foot should be plenty. Power lines that only use 1 conductor (like from a light switch) could be a problem. Don't be to neat with in-wall power lines or speaker cable, make sure that they have twists. On your circuit panel box, ( for US split-phase systems ) if you wire the heaters and stuff to one phase and the studio stuff to the other phase, you should be good. Remember that on a US panel the breakers alternate phase.