Wattgate 381 outlet:any comments from the owners?

How big is your imagination?

There are improvements and there are wastes of money. Power cords are a similiar waste in my less than humble opinion. I only pay for what I can hear. I can hear very very minor differences with the power cords, but none with the Wattgate wallet erasers.

loontoon

this is a far smaller improvement than you will find from good power cords, dedicated circuits, isolation and even cleaning your connectors. I will be a larger gain if it is the last of a series of tweaks listed above. If your just starting a good Hubble, or Alberts Cryo Hubbles, or Acme silver are all good choices. I have tried these and PS Audio and ... I found the Wattgate to surpass them all, but not as a starting point.

sorry Loontoon to hear you have not found a system to show off the benifit of power, but hopefully with an open mind...

JD

Overhang

In my opinion you will not experience any sonic improvement by replacing your PS Audio power port with a Wattgate 381. As far as power cords go the only sonic improvemet I can honestly say I heard was when I replaced the stock power cord on my SCD-1 with a PS Audio statement extreme.

well, I had the PS Audio Juice bar which had the PS Audio power ports in them. 6 of them to be precise i.e. 3 duplexes. I can tell you that they sound like total & utter sh**!
In my system, the PS Audio power ports made the sound very brittle & very forward. When I increased the volume, the sound-stage which was level with the speaker plane, moved forward! It was so in-my-face that it created listening fatigue in less than 1 hour. I got rid of these Power Ports in a hurry. However, I discovered this only 2 years after I bought the Juice Bar. In that time, I can say that I have grown as an audiophile, I've been exposed to more systems & I've learnt what to listen for. Also, 2 years after I bought the Juice Bar, I had a complete system capable of showing me the flaws up & down-stream.

I peg this horrid sound of the PS Audio Power Ports to the heavy nickel-plating used in them. It makes the sound very, very bright. What I found to be immensely better were all-brass outlets.

I do NOT think that you need to spend so much money on Wattgate 381 ports to reap the benefits of all all-brass outlet. Buying $7-$10/duplex outlet Hubbel 5262 (15A) or 5362(20A) outlets from an electrical surplus store should get you on the right track. You can get these cryo'd after-market from a number of places. Cryo'd is better but not necessary, IMHO. In this respect, Jadem6 provided you w/ the best even-keeled advice & 2nd that.

I, too, have listened to the Wattgatte 381 outlets that a friend has. It surpassed the Hubble 5362 that he had. The Wattgates are more dynamic. This comes from a person who used to be TOTALLY unconvinced that outlets could make ANY difference at all. I laughed (very loudly in my friend's face) when I was told that they did. It's probably what got me an audition of them at his place. I had to eat my words. When it comes to spending money on audio, I've Loontoon's attitude. However, I heard the diff clearly & I spent a *reasonable* amount of money on outlets. I recommend the same for you.

You can check my system to see which outlets I use. They are very good indeed.

Bombaywalla, I needed to write and let you know how impressed I am with your comments above. You growth as an audiophile and your honest assessment as a past sceptic is appreciated by me and I hope by others. Because of this I went to look at your system and read your reviews. You have a very eloquent presence as I found your reviews to be quite useful. I do not believe we have run into each other before this thread, so I did want to give you a special welcome. Very well done and I fully agree with your well worded description of PS Audio Ports. I found this is a PS Audio trait that carries into their other products as well. Brittle, excellent description!
JD

Hi Jadem6,
Wow! thank you very much for the special welcome & also the positive feedback of my reviews. It's much appreciated.
Looks like your experience w/ other PS Audio gear might have saved me many $ + frustration! Good to read that you concur w/ my assessment of their PowerPorts.
Best Regards.

I use wattgate and happy with them, however i find comment about PS interesting, I had PS Quintessence, didn't find it bright, replaced by Audience only because friend said nickel is not good, but he uses PS outlets, may be PS outlet don't have nickel plating, or because he uses Jadis, so the brightness may not show up in his system

The wattgate uses nickel between the copper and gold plate...it says it in the description....

overhang,

JMHO,  you would do a lot better buying a Porter Port and save yourself over a $100.00.
http://www.porterhouseaudio.com/Porter-ports.htm

Note:
The Porter Port is a Hubbell IG 5362 (20) amp duplex receptacle. IG, (Isolate Ground), means the equipment ground contact is isolated, insulated, from the supporting back strap of the outlet.

If you are installing an IG outlet to a plastic box the NEC requires a non conductive outlet cover shall be used because the supporting back strap will not be grounded. If the outlet is installed to a metal box then by the NEC the metal box is already grounded and therefore the supporting back strap will be as well. (Providing the branch circuit wiring is 2 wire with ground.)

Why did Albert Porter choose the Hubbell HBL IG 5362 duplex outlet? Because it has a slim compact body and comes with non nickel plated brass contacts and a not nickel plated brass supporting back strap. It’s the closest outlet made by Hubbell that sounds the same as the old stock, (no longer made the same), Hubbell HBL8300H hospital grade 20 amp duplex receptacle.

The standard grounding type Hubbell HBL5362 20 amp duplex outlet uses a deep body to support the contacts of the outlet. Beats me why the slim compact body outlet sounds neutral compared to the warmer sounding deep body outlet, but it does.

See page 10 for a picture of the Compact Body duplex receptacle outlet.

http://ecatalog.hubbell-wiring.com/press/pressreleasepdfs/H5254.pdf

See page 6 for a picture of the Deep Body duplex receptacle outlet.

Also note on page 6 the three duplex outlets. The first two are the Deep Body outlets. The bottom orange color IG 5262 (15) amp outlet has the slim Compact Body.
(The IG 5362 is the 20 amp outlet)


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