hospital grade or commercial grade receptacles ?

Dude, shut up--you don't know what you're saying. Enough.

Telling apart a Venezuelan from a Puerto Rican or Cuban waitress is *much* harder unless they speak with their respective accents. BTW, I just went to this Latin American buffet in Kissimmee and the waitresses were Venezuelan...*mature* waitresses, that is. TWL, take note. Got to tell their age by their hands, gums and elbows. They seem to age well!

The Psychic has spoken.

Don't read this folks, it's a rant.

Audiophilia is prime territory for quacks and snake oil salesmen. We all know it. We can all get taken in. So what?

A lot of us got taken in by the promise of the CD: perfect sound forever, they said. There were lots of reasons why. There was no argument, whether common-sense or scientific, to say why CD sound at the time of its introduction was worse, not better, than high-end analog. So we sold our LP collections for a song. Analog diehards snapped them up, at the price of being called flat-earthers.

But as an audiophile buddy of mine said, who cares? Why should "perfect sound forever" have made any of us sell off our LPs?

There are and have been plenty of other audio manias around. Balanced connections, optical digital, switch mode power supplies. I'm about to test Steve Nugent's contention that a 1.5 meter digital interconnect sounds better than one meter of the same wire. He has a technical explanation but I am going to let my ears make the decision. Hey, why not, if I have the extra cable and the connectors at hand?

I like well-built stuff. I can feel or see the difference in the construction quality of a high-grade plug, and I can hear the difference a good power cord makes. If it makes any difference to anyone, I have compared a standard 3-dollar molded cord, to a Wireworld Stratus homebuilt, to an Ernest Meunier (Subaruguru) PC13 Kit, to an Ensemble Powerflux, all on my Klyne SK-5A preamp, and I chose on the basis of the best sound I could afford.

I could hear the difference when I switched my system's AC wire and I was rather surprised. I was not fooling myself, it was not some itty bitty change. Music was clearer and more detailed, just easier to hear. I guess that some kind of interference had been eliminated, and I presume it was RF because the new cable was designed to deal with RF and I live in a high-RF neighbourhood. But I cannot tell you that I really do know why the darn wire made a difference. It just did. That matters to me, and I am willing to share my very small experience with Saki70. Who cares if there is no measurable difference between the old wire and the new?

I am not going to say I heard a difference with good power receptacles. All I know about them is that I have dollar ones at my cottage and they are a hazard. Plugs fall out of them. The fridge shuts down while I'm away for 2 weeks and I have to clean up the mess when I get back. Wobbly connections mean lights flicker on and off and the stereo spits. I have got to replace all of them. I am mad at the guy who used them.

Just on principle, I use good AC plugs in my sound system. That is common sense. I am taking care of something I value. It doesn't cost a whole lot to do it. I suppose one day I could try a cheap plug, or a different plug, and listen for a different sonic signature, but right now I just don't want to bother.

UHF magazine boils their water faster these days. I don't suppose it's any cheaper--I don't think any unused watts get thrown in the trash--but they get their coffee 20 per cent quicker in the morning. It's worth it to them.

Oh heck , maybe I got the number wrong. Maybe it's only 10 per cent quicker.

But who cares?

I second Psychicanimal about Irvrobinson. He would not know science if it bit him, yet he pretends to be authoritative.

Irv, EVERY change in equipment creates a change in the resulting sound, whether YOU can hear it. For instance, decades ago I laughed when my 'golden-eared' buddy talked about elevating speakercables from the carpet. Later in a single-blind test, my jaw dropped when I opened my eyes to see him holding the 2 cables off the ground after I had heard a substantial improvement in the sound...and I'M NOT the G-E audiophile, I'm the generally-tinned-eared audiofool (and I imagine you'd agree with at least the last part. :-) ).

EVERY change makes a difference. Most of them, most of us can't hear. But that doesn't mean there's no difference and that doesn't mean SOMEONE isn't hearing it.

But of course all of this doesn't mean that some of us at some time aren't deluding ourselves into hearing a change that doesn't really exist. That's why each of us has to be careful and methodical about these kinds of changes.
.

Feel free to choose your own line of reasoning, but the only truth I answer to in audio is the one informed by my own two ears.

And that is my final answer, Regis.