Well looks like Kilerpiglet is right, this is heading straight to the same type of discussion as speaker cables and ICs (as well as all other "tweaks", like cones, shelving etc). It all becomes a matter of belief. The suggestion is always made to try whatever is under discussion so that one can draw personal conclusions. The underlying belief is that any and all of this does have benefits on the sound itself and if you don't hear it, well... The analogy to hospital equipment is interesting, but not quite convincing to me. The reason for any measures taken in hospitals insofar as power lines, the quality of ac etc. might have to do more with insuring longevity of the equipment than ultimate performance. Moreover, I do not see that aesthetics enters into the picture insofar as priorities are concerned with medical equipment (which is not to say that their external design, nowadays, is not given a fair degree of attention), as with audio equipment, which, if I understand correctly, is invariably about the quality of the sound. Since I can make no claims to knowing what goes on in hospitals, I will not try to deduce from the type of wiring and sockets used there what the true motivation might be The notion that something could be done or should be done in home sound system installations merely for reasons of safety, operating stability, where the benefits only occur in extreme circumstances, or longevity of the equipment has, quite simply, vanished. The only thing that is left is that everything, from the shelf on which the equipment sits on to sun spots, somehow affect the "listening experience" (sorry for my use of junk English, I can't resist). It seems difficult to argue against the notion that the ultimate decision should always be based on one's own experience. Again, I am not convinced that it is necessarily so. The sub-argument here is that some listeners have the experience and knowledge required to discern properly. I will not touch this last point for fear that, yet again, lines will be drawn, to no avail. To use medical analogy again, I know for a fact that I cannot conduct proper testing of a drug alone on myself. I may feel that whatever it is I take provides relief or even a cure, but I would not even think of manufacturing whatever it was that in my own experience produced such results with the argument that I will let the user be the judge. We are not always the best judge. So the arguments go around and around until some participant invites another to leave because he is the troubling the A'gon peace. Luckily, its only a hobby. The only negative effect of tweaking and upgrading is on the wallet or in time lost, but, again, one can always argue that any hobby is a waste of time. In that sense audio is no worse, and in many ways better, than a number of other hobbies. The long and short of it, I guess, is personal choice, which, in these matters, I am for without reservation. With my limited resources, I still want to err on the side of more recordings and less hardware.
