Irvrobinson, it's a lot more fun to argue with you than it is with some other visitors. You stand up for yourself fine but you don't seem to take it terribly seriously. And nobody has made any ad hominem attacks. Thanks, everyone, for that.
In fact, although I am embarrassed at taking over Saki70's thread (though not too much to keep me from posting again), may I invite you both to my place next time you are in Montreal. It's a nice town to visit, if you've never been. If you do drop by, I will offer you a beverage and swap power cords on my preamp for you so you can hear the difference, or not. It was certainly an eye-opener for me, and many others have had a similar experience. In fact, as audio demos go, it is generally a real winner, right up there with analog vs digital.
As for the plug test you recommend I do--I must have expressed myself badly if you think I care. The point I wanted to make was that contacts under pressure are more efficient (and safer) than loose ones. I hardly think this can be a contentious opinion. It is a reason to buy quality outlets regardless of what they do to the sound. Only, if you think what they do to the sound may become important to you in future, better buy the ones you want right off. Upgrading outlets is a money pit. You might as well try to sell used toothbrushes.
I can think of one or two reasons why efficient power transfer to audio equipment might affect the sound, but honest, I don't want to bother arguing. Power cords been very very good to me, to coin a phrase. So have a dedicated line, shielded AC wiring, and isolation via a transformer. In the case of some of these items, the difference was both so nice and so cheap compared with a component upgrade that I can't imagine hesitating. But my opinion about it is pragmatic, not scientific.
Your double-blind notion might be fun if I were playing around with my son. He could swap cords, or not, while I was out of the room and I could try and say which was which. The result would be proof for some but not for others, which is why I wouldn't do it unless my son wanted to play. Some say, for example, that short-term swaps ignore the range rule: since a sound system is made for listening over long periods, swift A-B switches are no way to judge components. Particularly if the test subject has to identify the component, which is so far from normal use of a sound system it's not funny.
I am enjoying reading this ( Saki70's !! ) thread. I wonder, though, how long you will be able to hang on to the collective hallucination idea. In the case of my Ensemble power cords, both I and my best audio buddy described the difference they made the same way, in different systems 500 miles apart. Think of IM distortion, or jitter. Before they could be identified and measured, people had to notice differences that measurements couldn't explain. And, before they could be measured, maintain that those differences were there in spite of opposition !
