Power Receptacles - Review and Comparison

Dave -- My compliments on a well written review, and on the very extensive effort you obviously put into all of this. However, as a technically-oriented person who as you'll recall is something of an audio skeptic, albeit one who considers himself to be open-minded, there are some questions I would like to raise.

I don't doubt that your descriptions of what you heard were accurate. What I wonder is if your methodology adequately eliminated extraneous variables, and if what seemed to be differences attributable to the receptacles may have actually been due to something else.

Were the differences you perceived typically immediately recognizable, on the first recording you listened to after switching receptacles, or did they only become apparent after listening sessions that extended over weeks or months?

If the former, did you switch back to the previous receptacle to confirm your perceptions?

If the latter, the same question applies, and also how do you know that the differences were not due to things like ongoing aging or burn-in of system components, seasonally-related temperature changes in the room affecting component performance, changes (also possibly seasonally-related) in line voltage, or in noise levels on the ac line, subtle wear in your record grooves due to repeated playings, etc.?

Again, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your findings, just raising what I think are questions that need to be addressed before your conclusions are fully persuasive.

Regards,
-- Al

Dlcockrum,

Thank you taking the time to share with us the results of your extensive evaluations. This is most interesting, and I find your results consistent with my much less rigorous testing. While I can't speak directly to the Porter Ports, I've settled on and use the Jena Labs and Walker Audio outlets (which are similar) and have found them to be the most neutral and the most musically natural of all the various outlets I've heard. Given the similar provenance, I expect the Porter Ports to sound very much like what I'm hearing here.

Regards,

I also hear differences in AC outlets. Now to really confuse you, describe the sound of various outlets in combination with a variety of PC's, just like seasoning food.

Another outlet to try is the Isoclean ICP-003. It hasn't gotten much press for some reason.

Dear Al,

Here is my best attempt at addressing your questions/concerns:

Q: Were the differences you perceived typically immediately recognizable, on the first recording you listened to after switching receptacles, or did they only become apparent after listening sessions that extended over weeks or months?

A: The difference in the sound when switching between any of the receptacles was immediately recognizable. The purpose of having an extended listening period was simply to ensure that my perceptions of each product would remain consistent over time.

Q: If the former, did you switch back to the previous receptacle to confirm your perceptions?

A: I switched back and forth numerous times in each comparison, sometimes several times within the same listening session and sometimes after listening to one receptacle for an extended time (days) before switching to another.

It is not hard or time consuming for me because I have two 30 amp dedicated lines for my amp and two 20 amp dedicated lines for my front end. Thus, I could have any two receptacles installed and powered up simultaneously for each position. The switching process between any two receptacles only took about 90 seconds, most of which was the 'boot up' time of the equipment after powering down.

Q: If the latter, the same question applies, and also how do you know that the differences were not due to things like ongoing aging or burn-in of system components, seasonally-related temperature changes in the room affecting component performance, changes (also possibly seasonally-related) in line voltage, or in noise levels on the ac line, subtle wear in your record grooves due to repeated playings, etc.?

A: Again, the differences in the my system's sound with the change of receptacles were immediately discernable. This is true when using both LPs and CDs (I am not aware of any wear factor on CD). This time of year (October - November) in my part of Texas yields very consistent temperatures. My Krell runs pure Class A at all times and ensures that my listening room temperature stays about the same (HOT!). I have dedicated lines and the time of the listening sessions varied enough that, over iterative comparisons, I am certain that AC quality was not a factor in my observations.

Al, it seems that you might think that my perceptions were largely psychosomatic. I can assure you this is not the case. This is an excerpt from a message I sent a friend of mine during the comparison:

"Over the years, whenever I was trying out interconnects, speaker cables, digital cables on various CD front-ends, etc, I would always ask my wife to listen while I swapped back and forth. She nailed it right away every time. She can hear like on owl and knows what good sound is. It would always take me a lot longer to figure it out, but after a while, I always concluded that she got it right. Every time."

"Well, last night I asked her to listen to my system while I started with the SR Teslaplex receptacle and then switched to the Oyaide R1. She was totally unaware of what changes were being made as I moved the Tesla power cords to my CDP and preamp from one receptacle to the other. After listening to the whole 8+ minutes of track 11 of the Shirley Horn CD, "You Won't Forget Me", with the Teslaplex, it only took her about 30 seconds with the R1 to say "That sounds totally different. This one (the R1) makes her voice sound 'recorded' and the instruments are much more forward. On the other one (the SR), her voice sounded much more natural and the instruments were much farther back".

'Nuff said.

The good news is that you need only risk $36 plus shipping to hear the Power Port for yourself. Why not give it a try? I would sincerely appreciate hearing your opinion after installing any one of these receptacles compared to the one you currently use.

Best of Luck,
Dave