Power Cables and Wall Sockets

Thank you, everyone, for your responses today. It has made me really start digging in to a series of improvements that I think can be done. @erik_squires aka "bare wire as God intended" (love that) Thank you for linking your articles, they were very helpful, especially since I was being led to consider power strips as well.

I haven't really focused at all on the power side of the equation, so I have quite a bit of "low hanging fruit", in other words relatively inexpensive improvements that I can definitely make to gauge the incremental sound improvement.

If the improvement is noticeable, I may not stop...sound familiar? 😎

@imaninatural - I don't know what experience you have had personally with power cables, so I'll share my very limited experience and make a recommendation.  I had been curious about the possibility of power cords making an audible difference and ran across a recommendation for W Audio power cords that are available on Amazon for about $50.  I figured that this was a relatively inexpensive opportunity to satisfy my curiosity so I picked up a pair of them.  I put one on my Pathos Classic One MkIII (hooked to a power conditioner) and the other on my Maverick Audio DAC.  The sound of my system changed significantly and I realized that I was using my SACD player as the source so the only difference was the power cord on my amplifier.  I can't say that I have noticed a definitive difference with the other two power cords in my system (i.e. DAC and Power Conditioner), but it absolutely improved the sound of my amplifier.  The improvement was significant enough that it caused me to try some Audioquest interconnects that also surprised me which led to me trying an Audioquest digital cable that I can't say did anything in my system.  If you have not played around with power cords at all, spend $50 on a W Audio power cable that you can have in a couple of days and see what happens.  If you're an audiophile $50 isn't a lot to satisfy your curiosity.

I can't definitely say that if a W Audio cable doesn't yield a change in your system that another "better" cord won't, but it's a place to start.

I moved into my house in the Phoenix area not that long ago.  I recently had an electrician over to install two  Furutech  outlets in the area where the prior owner had his stereo equipment.  To my pleasant surprise, the two outlets were 20 amp and I have power conditioners plugged into each one.   But how can one know what the gauge is for the wire running from the pole (or breaker) through my house?

You can measure the size at the outlet. That’s not 100%, but there normally shouldn’t be any change in wire size after the panel. You can also look at it in the panel at the breaker, if you're comfortable removing the panel cover. All the wires will be exposed, including the main service wires. Act accordingly.