Ok, please keep in mind that I'm not an electrician, and my terminology is just information I'm confusing between you guys and my friend at work that I totally trust.
Anyway, I wired my basement myself. I have 12-2 for everything. My HT equipment is on a seperate 20amp breaker with 12-2 wire run from the breaker box on one end of my basement to the HT area. Everything else in the basement, lights-outlets, etc....are on their own 15amp circuit.
From what I'm told, and I'm sure everyone has different terminolgy, the black wire is the "hot", the white wire is sometimes called the primary groud, and the bare wire is the secondary ground. The primary ground has the prong, lug, fin, pin, or whatever the terminology is, which is wider, so the plug only fits in one way. Back in the day both of they were the same size, and many plugs did not have the "third" secondary (bare) wire.
I was told I could unhook the secondary, bare wire, from the outlet my AV equipment is hooked to, and see if the "static", not hum goes away. This would tell me if I'm getting interference somewhere else in the line, which is being picked up by the secondary ground (bare wire).
Anyway, my friend from work I talked to is 60, and has been around networking and phone topologys his whole life. He gave me information to help me wire my basement, as it was not rocket science. I'm sure I'm not phraseing everything as it might be stated in the textbooks, so sorry.
