Power conditioning from the ground up

I asked about a 10 gauge wire and he said it’s overkill.

All electricians say this, at least in my experiences.
Overkill is what this hobby is all about though. ;^)

You almost have to buy the supplies for them, in fact I did. The electrician will just shake his head and look at you funny when he sees the crazy wire and outlets in your hands. He’ll tell you that anything at Home Depot would work just as well. Maybe he is right and us audiophiles are wrong.

I think electricians don’t want to use 10 gauge because 12 gauge is easier to work with, and does fulfill the code.

As for outlets, there are many good ones to choose from. I've only used outlets from PS Audio, Oyaide, and currently I am using Furutech GTX-D's just as Larry (lak). I have heard good things about the Avatar Afterburner, but I haven't heard one.

It's hard to choose someones outlets for them, same as trying to make a cable suggestion. The PS Audio was pretty good, the Oyaide a bit more musical, and the Furutech a bit more resolving.
Which will work best for you will depend on your gear/room and personal listening tastes.

asp307, I would go with 10awg wire.  This is one of the upgrades you won't be doing again anytime soon.  And it's not as easy as swaping an outlet or component. 

I am using Furutech's GTX-D (R) and echo jmcgrogan2 last post.  I would try couple of different outlets and decide for yourself what sounds best your ears. 

Happy Listening! 

If I may, I would like to introduce yet another angle to this power discussion. Does anyone use balanced power such as a BPT or an Equitech device? I would be curious to hear replies.

I can share my experience with balanced power having used an Equitech 10WQ in my last system. This is a big (385lb!) built in conditioner that while providing good power was a pain in use. I found the system to be unreliable constantly triggering its GFCI circuits whenever other household appliances went on and off. On the end Equitech advised me to bypass all the GFCIs which I did but that involves popping the hood and reqwiring the circuits. In addition having a built in balanced conditioner will affect the resale of your property as most buyers will not accept non standard outlets, and ripping one of these things out during a sale is not easy

My current installation uses a Torus WM 75 which has the benefit of balanced power at the input while normal phase power on the outlets. In my opinion this is an ideal setup and the Torus conditioners are pretty good value, robust and very reliable

rest of my setup is SR quantum tunneled Romex in the walls (which had to be stripped of its outer sheath to meet Oregon code) to SR outlets and Oyaide WPC covers. I also installed Environmental Potentials ground filter and surge protector on the front end. Obviously it's hard to do a before and after on a setup like this but I can safely say my system has never sounded better and I'm certain that the input power is not a limitation