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
I don't mind those who venture into the forums at Audiogon and say, "I prefer Nordost over Purist and Cardas." Or, "I tried a NBS power cord on my CD player and although it was better, I did not feel it was worth the investment."

Those are honest experiences, regardless if you agree or disagree with their conclusion.

What angers me are the "specification and numbers" types that have nothing better to do than smugly report that the sum of ALL our experience is an aberration because it was not covered in school.

I do not advocate anyone buy expensive cables, that is something each of us must decide for ourselves. THAT decision should be made in the end users system, based on listening.
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 !
Hdm, not only have you quoted me improperly and out of context, but you don't know what you're talking about. I figured all of that measurement stuff was chest beating. I'll tell you what, though. If someone will send me at least one cryo'd cable I'll give it a listen. But buy it, you've got to be kidding.

Did you really spend more on the cable than the DVD player? That's... funny!
Albert, experience ain't enough. Your ears (well, actually your brain) can and will deceive you. And at least some rudimentary science does count. You see, Albert, you're pecking an answer me on a machine that wouldn't exist without a pretty breathtaking understanding of how electricity is conducted through all sorts of materials, taking into account some pretty subtle effects that are sometimes down to a mere trickle (metaphorically speaking) of electrons on signal paths less than a micron wide. And then, laughably, you use that very device to tell me that the science of signal propagation, that's much simpler than that for integrated circuits, doesn't matter. I've got news for you - it matters.

Now I know that a big deal is being made here that I haven't listened to a cryo'd power cord or outlet, so therefore my arguments aren't valid. But guys, I have listened to many different power cables, speaker cables and interconnects - in a damn revealing system - and I heard no difference. None. Nada. Now are you arguing that cryo'd cables are necessary to hear the difference?

And by the way, before any of you guys argue that I haven't heard proper cables, here's the list:

An Audioquest power cord the dealer had me try when I bought my first ML amp. He was very nice to me, so I humored him. No difference. It sure looked nice, though. I thanked him for the experience and returned it.

Cardas Quadlink interconnects. Nice color! I found these at a garage sale / estate sale for $20, in perfect condition. I use them on my video system,for audio (with an $80 receiver). No difference on the main system.

Audioquest Midnight and Green Hyperlitz speaker cables. I could have sworn they didn't sound as good as my home-made 10AWG cables, but I must have been imagining things. They certainly didn't sound better. (Have you ever cut one of these open? There's so little copper in there you wonder how they work properly at all. All to try and manage skin effect at audio frequencies...)

So now what? I suppose now I need to have my ears cleaned or my hearing checked?
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