Upgrading wall outlets

It sounds better for the same reason that your car drives better after you wash it, for the same reason you're more likely to buy a house if you smell bread being baked in it, and for the same reason your impression of someone is dramatically different depending on whether you happen to have a cold beverage or a hot one in your hand when you meet them. I'm assuming, of course, that the old wall socket will not have been made of a pig snout.

Or pig snot!!!!

Coming up on 50 years in audio, I wish I had written down every time an engineer, usually not one in audio, has explained how some effect could not possibly exist. I am sure a chemist could prove by analysis that there is no significant difference between wines and those who claim the opposite are fooling themselves. As for me I agree with Ivor Tifenbrun that " If you haven't heard it you don't have an opinion".

Br3098,

Some of the high end audio equipment is so unreliable that almost anything can cause a change in response. In fact some equipment probably never sounds the same twice ever anyway. In this case, every change including the material used in the cover plate on the wall socket to the minutest change in listening position ,volume level etc. will make an audible difference, sounding slightly different every time a critical observation is made.

As you correctly point out, some types of equipment are specificially designed (manufacturers go to great lengths) to ensure they are largely immune and largely robust to significant changes in the operating environment.

So it really depends what equipment you are referring to or what you prefer to use. Some folks will shun robust equipment as being unresolving and favor something that is highly setup dependent (resolving). For some, setup sensitivity to a variety of factors is good proof that the equipment is highly resolving. (If a mere wall socket changes the response then said equipment must surely be able to pick up even finer details in the music than most)

It is a difference of philosophy.

Stanwal, if you knew me better you would understand that:

1. I haven't learned how to hear what doesn't exist, and
2. I always have an opinion

Cheers,