Good outlet for amplifiers

The code is silent on the ground up ground down. Back in the knob and tube days there was a requirement that the neutral be on the left leading to the ground pin down. Today either is correct

I want it to grip the plugs well. Recommendations?

Grip is one thing, the tendency of the heavy attached power cable falling out is another. Shunyata came out with their cradles for that reason.

https://shunyata.com/product/cable-cradle-wall-plate/

Viborg also has one also: Viborg outlet

Beyond the actual grip, because the cheaper brass hospital plugs do this with stronger springs and more metal, there is the issue of damaging the outer layers of metal on the plug on your expensive cable. In theory this would deteriorate the performance.

That is what is wonderful with the Furutech GTX in that its clamping system does not marr the plug end. And it sounds wonderful too.

PS - The info I posted above related to ground pin location is not related to the NEC but falls under the category of electrician's wisdom. 

BTW, from experience, I’m completely against the use of rhodium plated anything in audio for two reasons: It’s not a very good conductor and it’s too hard. I’ve used rhodium plated items in everything from RCA plugs to AC.

You’d think hard was good, but when you have two hard metal objects coming into contact with each other they fail to grip very well at all. It’s bad in speaker terminals (though nickel in this case is also bad) and it makes AC plugs far too slippery.

Copper, brass, gold, silver however deform in all the right ways (they squish together) and prevent speaker terminals from becoming unscrewed and keep plugs in their sockets.

No matter what arguments they may make for audio grade outlets you’ll never convince me rhodium belongs anywhere but on jewelry.  I'll take an affordable hospital grade plug and outlet over any jewel like plugs all day long.

@peter_s 

Another vote here for the Furutech GTX-D NCF(R) outlets.  I found very favorable sonic improvement of this outlet over a few other audiophile grade outlets.   

Regarding the ability to daisy chain from one Furutech to another, there are two sets of lugs to wire to on each unit.  A better way to extend to a second outlet would  be to pigtail separate leads to each outlet in the same box, or to extend the circuit to a separate box.  This way a loose connection does not affect downstream outlets.  Just did this on 1000’ of romex for four separate circuits and 22 outlets in my basement at the recommendation of my electrician.  If there is a problem with a loose connection for an outlet it will be at the outlet instead of the possibility of an upstream connection.  

Admittedly, the Furutech outlet doesn’t have the tightest connection.  But the sonic improvement easily offsets that.