hospital grade or commercial grade receptacles ?


What is the difference ? Is it really worth ten times the price to get hospital grade receptacles ? Why ?
Is one brand really superior to another? Is Pass &
Seymore a good brand ? Hubble better ?
I am setting up a closet to house my mid-fi gear and
will be running two dedicated 20A. lines to run the
2-channel audio and the home entertainment equipment. I
will have two double (2 duplex receptacles) on each 20A
circuit.
Thank you in advance.
saki70
Psychicanimal, it's little rude to tell somebody to shut up in the public forum.

Those of you who heard a difference with power cords, good for you. Those who have not, also good for you. I for one am with Irvrobinson but I do replace the stock power cords of all my equipment with some cheap but decent ones. My system certainly looks more *complete* with the cords. Sound-wise Irvrobinson maybe you're right it's in my head. Oh well who cares. The cords look impressive anyway.

Irvrobinson, keep up your postings as I find them quite informative.
Saki70, you've received good advice from some of the posts above. Running the two dedicated 20 amp circuits will be the biggest gain for you. Installation choices that will enhancing those dedicated circuits would include:

..Use 10 gauge wire

..Make the leap to using an isolated ground in your wiring (which means using the hospital grade connector that will not self-ground when installed in a metal box, and 4-wire cable with a ground wire -- I think the current color-coding standard is for that type cable to be manufactured in a green sheathing)

..Get both dedicated cables run to the same phase of your electrical panel, if you can. And try to put them on the other phase from heavy-duty motors and compressors: often easier said than done.

..Use non-plated all brass receptacles, as Rcrump suggests. Hubbell makes a non-plated all-brass hospital grade receptacle, but I can't find the part number right now. Pass and Seymour may have something comparable. Definitely try to stay away from nickel plated parts.

Or use one of the receptacles from: Jena Labs or Walker Audio or Albert Porter (if he still has any, often referred to here as "Porterport", a cryo'd Hubbell). The Jena Labs and Walker Audio receptacles are special production runs by Hubbell using their 30-watt chassis for heavier gauge internal parts, no steel and no plating, configured as a 20-watt receptacle, then cryo'd like Albert's. Other people will have had experience with other "audiophile" receptacles, but these would be my recommendation.

..Get some SST silver contact enhancer from Walker Audio for your electrician to use on all the connections in the circuit. Your electrician will be familiar with electrician's paste: explain that this is just a much higher grade, higher quality paste (which it is, by a huge margin). Then also use it on your power cords, interconnects and speaker cables. Try it on you main system and I think you'll be amazed at the improvement.

This is a summary coming from my experience; it's worked well here.
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Irvrobinson, I find it interesting that someone with no posting history listed should jump into Saki70's question the way you have. I also find your contributions to this thread in no way useful. You're arguing from theory with no experimentation. So, I will repeat, I totally agree with everything Albert has said above. If you'd like to engage in some informed dialog here on this topic in this forum, I suggest you do some experimentation and then share your listening observations which may confirm or bring into question your assertions. Until then, I'm going to put you into my TROLL classification because that behavior is all that I'm seeing from you in this thread. Much of what you're arguing has been discussed endlessly on Audiogon; read some of the archives and try a few things for yourself or partner with someone who is willing to help you listen for what they hear.
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This has been a typical degenerating discussion from the those who claim to be from the "scientific perspective" who claim without measurement that there is no difference among components or wire because of several perspectives. Either it "just cannot be", Irvrobinson above; "others have to demonstrate it "scientifically;" or "science theory precludes it." On the other side are those who say they hear a difference and therefore there is a difference. Usually they say one of several things: measurement of differences apart from what one hears falls short of being complete; they don't care what measurement might say and that they are happy with their choice; or that the objectivists "just cannot hear" or "don't have a sufficientlly resolving system to hear the differences." There also is the suggestion that the objectivists are resentful as they don't have a pot to piss in.

If there is no agreement on how the hypothesis that wires don't make a difference is correct, this dispute cannot be resolved. There is no agreement on evaluating it. Therefore 100 years from now, it will continue.
Rushton,
Now, that was a perfect response to Saki70's question. I think that was what he was looking for. For the record, what you suggested was exactly the route I took when I began working on my listening room. I have used the "Porterports" and every other application you laid out in your post, with the exception of the Walker SST, which is on my "to do" list. I don't know nothin' 'bout no science involved but I can tell you that I do hear a difference from the "before" to the "after".

Setting all the arguments aside, If the user is willing to experiment with these tweaks and is willing to hear the difference, and does hear the difference, then THAT is all that matters. Power issues are part of the synergy of the complete system package. And in the end, the only one who needs to be satisfied, is the owner of said system.