hospital grade or commercial grade receptacles ?

In response to Irv,

I'm not saying that physics doesn't matter. And I'm not a scientist-- although I am a professor, and therefore used to thinking skeptically, and demanding proof from myself and from my students in our work in the humanities. And heck if I know why some outlets (and power conditioners, and power cords) sound different. But the fact is, they do (at least through my Audio Research electronics, Vandersteens, and good cabling: your equipment might reveal more or fewer of these differences. Some equipment, including very, very good equipment, doesn't change much when altering peripherals). And not a little, and not subtley. You don't have to be a true believer, or a crank. This is audible, and easily audible, to people who don't care one way or the other (such as my wife). In my case, FIM outlets were too dark sounding for the associated equipment-- a phenomenon many others attest to independantly-- and Wattgates were much clearer and brighter (the same applies). As with so many other things in science, one notices the phenomenon first, and then hopes to find the the underlying mechanism that explains it. Although we try to pretend it isn't, much medical research is based upon this fact.

Here's a plausible explanation as to why power cords make a difference:

It's my understanding that standard wiring for 15 amp house circuits is 14 AWG with three conductors. Many components come with detachable cheap 18 AWG power cords with molded connectors. The 18 AWG cords can present a bottleneck between house wiring and a component's internal wiring. Whether one hears a difference with thicker wires, depends on the quality of the component's internal wiring. High quality amplifiers may use anywhere from 14 to 8 AWG internally. In that case, common sense tells me that better cables will make a noticeable difference.

BTW: Recommend you check out Pinnacle power cords made by Panamax. They have excellent specs for the money. I found them surfing the web...

Best regards,
Jay

Oh no--not again!

Hard wire is best!

Believing you hear a difference is not proof. I'm not personally a fan of using double-blind testing to figure out what makes a difference (taking such a test is so annoying I think it masks differences), but I think it is necessary to have at least a vague theory about why some change will make a difference. This is where special outlets, power cords, plugs, and the like, fail the test.

Electricity is not a mystery. Not even a little bit. Electrical behavior is not like biology. There aren't any new phenomena being observed. This has nothing to do with quantum physics, no similarity with the origins of life... electrical engineering is not a field where the fundamentals are poorly understood. I hate to break this to you, but the very existence of microchips proves that electrical behavior is understood to a very, very high level. We know how electrons behave at stupendously low current levels, very high frequencies, and with every known conductor, and this audio and AC power stuff is simplistic by comparison.

There is no known way that there can be a difference between two electrical outlets, both with similar resistance (like, effectively zero for any properly functioning outlet), sufficient to alter the current flow in any meaningful way. Forget EMI. That's microvolts compared to 110-120v from the wall. Six to eight orders of magnitude difference? The length of the current path and the amount of metal involved is small enough that any reasonable copper alloy will be nearly perfect. Even silver would only make a 5% conductance difference within the outlet, but within the total context of the mains circuit path that 5% would be inconsequential. (And it ain't 5% of volts, so that if silver is 100v copper would be 95v. It's a 5% increase in resistance, and since V=current x resistance, and current is large and the resistance of copper is so small to begin with, the overall difference is very small.)

I'm sorry guys, but what you are professing, that there are differences in sonics due to different properly functioning conductors in the mains power path, is unreasonable. Asserting there are differences because you think you hear them is not only bad science, it's just plain provably wrong. I don't care that there are companies or seemingly expert people in the industry that say there are differences, there aren't. They can't explain why those differences would occur, and electricity ain't a mystery.

There are things I've purchased where I've definitely exhibited having more money than sense. For my amps I made power cords using 12/3 Carol cable and Marinco plugs and IECs. They're the right length and the plugs sure do look cool, and 12/3 looks nice and thick. Overkill, oh yeah. Difference in sound over the molded cords that came with the amps? Nope. There's 119v measured at the outlet and at the IEC end of the power cord. That's all that's important. Those big old transformers in the amp are going to change everything anyway. If you want to justify high-end power stuff because it looks cool or feels cool... I'm into it. But to argue there's a "sonic signature"? You're kidding yourselves. You might as well pray to idols for better sound.