AC Outlet w/ Clairity, Trasparency, Bass Weight

here is a bit more explanation of my initial post in this thread.

approximately 4 years ago a local audiophile dealer friend offered to install a few of Oyaide duplex outlets in my system. i had been using the Jena Labs cryo'd outlets. he said he would remove them and charge me nothing if i did not like what they did. i told him it was not something i cared that much about, but what the heck....go ahead.

i had 11 of the Jena Labs outlets; initially my friend installed 3 of the R-1 outlets and WPC-Z cover plates. i used them on my amp, preamp and digital player.

i was not prepared for the degree of improvement in everything.....noise floor, vividness, dynamics, overall clarity. i was floored that simply improving the connection for my power cords could do that.

i had my friend add 2 more of the outlets so i could use them for everything, and still have enough of the Jena's in my system for a valid A/B. over the next 2 weeks approx 10 local audiophile visited for the A/B demo on the Oyaide outlets. 100% were very dumbfounded that there could be that difference.

then i replaced the other Jena's with the Oyaide R-1 and WPC-Z covers.

i was not expecting the change; in fact i was hopeing there would be no change. this was not any sort of placebo effect. the other friends who heard the A/B were quite skeptical.

ya gotta listen with an open mind.

yes; they are spendy. but paying for a gear upgrade to equal improving your power supply performance from these outlets would cost you more.....or maybe would not be attainable in any other way.

Sometimes you just have to do the research, determine what many prefer, and go with it.

Life's too short to spend it installing, reinstalling and comparing AC plugs
Tvad (Threads | Answers | This Thread)

Ditto. I'll eventually choose an outlet and that'll be it. Auditioning is going too far for me.

Choosing a well constructed outlet is a most reasonable thing to do to me to assure that a good connection is made. I don't think it is any more complicated than that.

Auditioning different outlets, well, maybe if one really cares to be a pioneer in this particular area, but I suspect it to be an exercise in futility to cleanly associate specific sonic properties to different outlets and can think of many better ways to spend time.

It seems reasonable to assume that if changing anything between the audio equipment and the power at the main panel makes such a dramatic degree of improvement, there must be something very unusual (read non standard) about the basic AC line voltage source. Conversely one would expect that the closer the AC line voltage source is to the theoretical standard that equipment is designed for, the less effect any changes would be. If one could identify and better yet measure some of these offending artifacts, it might help determine the need for and type if changes (outlets, power cords, etc.) that would improve the system performance.

My first system was in a large highly populated metropolitan suburb surrounded with light industrial plants. A dedcated subpanel, ISO, and Porter Ports reduced the noise floor dramatically. Now, I live in a rural area not too far from a power generation station, and close to the power pole stepdown transformer. While I still use that same power conditioning equipment, it makes far less of a difference.

Mikelavigne... do you think there is there any such correlation with your system? For example, do you live next to an industrial complex or out in the forest?

Anyone else have the same experience? This might help some avoid overspending or doing time consuming comparisons where not necessary. Wouldn't it be great if some research would identify some of the key offending power attributes? Note I'm not speaking here about air born EMR or noise from other appliances in the home.