Your Favorite AC Outlets

I think it's one thing to be skeptical but quite another not to be willing to get to the bottom of things by actually investigating these claims which, in the case of wall receptacles, have been around since Jesus was a second lieutenant. I would have suspected real skeptics would be a little more curious, but hey! that's just me. Recall the first thing that happens in the scientific method is observation, and somewhere in there is investigation. Without which you just get a whole lotta who shot John.

Al, thanks for your response and expounding on the topic so accurately and concisely (as usual).

Knowledge is always the key to effectively mitigating any risk, large or small.

An appropriate euphemism would be "look before you leap".

Its that simple, I think.

When someone figures out a way to effectively try everything, please let me know. I may be the first to sign up, if it works for me.

Meanwhile, the reality is each individual will have to make up their own minds regarding value propositions and how to most effectively spend their time and $$$$s.

Reality is such a downer sometimes. At least most of us are free to choose how we spend our time. That's a big +++.

Al, thanks for being the voice of reason.

It is always good to understand how something works but it is not a requirement to take advantage of the results. The benefit of understanding is to be able to create a system model and optimize for best results without so much trial and error. I'm sure the people who are able to do that want/need to leverage their knowledge for income. I don't blame them, it takes time and money to do the experimentation and analysis work.

I know that putting dissimilar metals together is not optimum- ie. gold plated contacts are great; but the mating parts need to be gold as well. I can believe that Nickel plating doesn't sound as good. Ni and Cd have a +2 ionic charge compared to +1 for Au, Ag and Cu. This is likely more critical for IC's; but what materials and plating are typically used on powercord plugs? What plating is used on the screws and backing plates of the Electrical Outlets? These metal mismatches may have minimal impact as new; but they will corrode eventually which means local heating and voltage drops.

I have had dedicated power since 1988. I got the idea from a buddy who already was using dedicated, filtered power for years prior. I have no idea how my system would sound without dedicated power lines.

About 2 years ago I was looking to upgrade my phono-pre. The owner of the store told me to bring my phono-pre and we would compare it to his. I listened for about 30 minutes and couldn't tell the difference between mine and his. Mine retailed for 2000.00 and his retailed for 3500.00. The owner of the store said he heard a slight difference but it wasn't worth the difference in price.

The way I see it If I could not tell the difference in a phono-pre that cost almost 2 times as much as mine am I going to hear the difference with a 50.00 AC outlet?