hospital grade or commercial grade receptacles ?

Robin is not Raoul. The grammar's too good.

Cheers to Irvrobinson and Eldartford for questioning and challenging commonly held beliefs (despite the barrage of insults.) I personally have no interest in tweaks that are controversial in nature, but have followed this thread because of its interesting debate on both sides. Everyone`s opinions have value and the interaction in this topic is what a discussion forum is all about. But don`t lose sight of the fact that "it`s all about the music".

Dvorák's music is my favorite classical...cryo treated!

Albertporter...Two kinds of insults are being thrown about here.

(1) Because you HAVE formal scientific training you cannot maintain an open mind. (By the way you never got back to me about Leonardo da Vinci).

(2) Because you DO NOT HAVE scientific training you cannot make sense.

Both wrong, of course.

Where do I come from? Well, I was a most awful student, but did manage to escape college with an engineering degree. Hired as a tech writer, and then moving into real engineering I gradually picked up the stuff I should have learned in school. I was quite successful as an engineer, not because I was technically savvy, but because I was famous for thinking "out of the box". I had people working under my direction who had masters and PHD degrees. I would never discount their contributions to my work because they often put my crazy ideas on solid ground by analysis that I personally could not do. Also, I always valued the technicians in the lab, some with little formal training, who made the ideas work in the real world.

From the appearance of your system I conclude that expense is no issue for you. Most people, on the other hand, need to trade off cryo'd wires and outlets against better speakers, and hype doesn't carry much weight in this process. Someone commented, above, that your superb system would not exist were it not for some fine engineering. Don't forget that.

One other minor point...when you cite your Grammy-winning friend who likes your equipment, you should make clear at the beginning that the guy is a classical musician. Pop musicians are mostly half deaf: an occupational hazard.

Eldartford,

The reason I ignored your comparison to Leonardo da Vinci is that we are dealing with decidedly smaller minds here. My comments did not include the great creators and artists who's worth has been proven by history, but rather observations of the dogmatic people at hand.

Leonardo da Vinci would not be debating these points, he would be designing, drawing and experimenting to discover the path to greatness, regardless of personal cost.

My anger is directed at those who take the stance, "Everything that effects the music can be measured." A point of view that leaves no room for discovery or creativity.

How can you assume you know everything there is to know about scientific measurement? Even if you take the path of using (proven) measurements at hand, do you then dismiss all discoveries that fall outside of what we currently know?

If something works on a consistent and repeatable basis and we cannot apply a number or measurement to it, we have work to do in the field of measurement. I prefer thinking we have more to learn, not that we know it all.

As for my being able to afford whatever I want, you are terribly wrong. I would wager what little money I have, both you and Irvrobinson have more money and less debt than I do.

The difference between us the level of passion in what we believe.

I will do without many personal items and all luxuries to make my music the best it can be. That requires all the pieces I have in my system, including audiophile cables. I doubt you have that commitment and because those details are not worth that level of personal investment, you dismiss it.

I think Irvrobinson just likes to argue, it has nothing to do with passion and certainly not anything to do with making his system better.

Odd that some come to Audiogon, a decidedly high end audio site and completely dismiss an entire range of product used and respected by every major high end audio manufacturer in the business.