I suppose you could wait the time it will take for Peter (Pbnaudio) to run his upcoming Great AC Outlet Shootout and consider its results, one way or another, before pulling the trigger on suitable duplexes. But, I know I can recommend one thing you may not yet know about that will be far more important to the sonics of the finished strip than indeed what kind of duplex you will be using...and I can't over emphasize that idea enough. In my own DIY powerstrip - a $30 Home Depot job with 5 rather robust-looking (but certainly conventional) duplexes - I installed 5 little devices from Alan Maher Designs (Facebook) that Alan calls "QDS" or "quantum duplex shields". They look like just a thin little copper strip that attaches to the rear of the duplex by means of double-sided tape (already attached to the QDS, just peel and stick), but you also connect a single wire already attached to the copper strip to the duplex's ground screw. The QDS works by greatly suppressing a duplex's tendancy to "ring", the kind of ringing that interferes with harmonic reproduction (harmonic distortion) and simply shunts it to ground. But, the QDS like all of Alan's other products are designed to do only one thing: reduce electrical noise. It's just that there is truly a lot of sonic justification for doing so. You would also use one on the system duplex at the wall - a definite chokepoint for everything plugged into it. Each copper QDS is $20 on Facebook and his usual sale price (on just about every holiday on the calendar) is that if you buy 3 you get a 4rth one free. If you have any doubts at first, I can tell you that if you order just one and put it at the wall on the system duplex it will just blow you away...after that you won't need any convincing from me. Whether your current duplex costs $200 or 20 cents, I'm sure the QDS will make a believer out of you as it did me.
Inside the copper strip is a proprietary piece of paper that aids in its effectiveness, although I'm not sure what it is exactly or what its role is. But, I do know that there is a silver version ($45) and a gold version (usually $60, but market price on that one) as well. The Gold QDS offers the most noise reduction of the 3. Also, each type of QDS can sublely affect system voicing, silver offering more extention and gold more bass articulation and overall warmth, and so on. The silver version is known to do nice things for video, too.
My own DIY strip is a simple, plain-jane $30 Home Depot strip whose (captive) AC cord I cut to a manageable length and then capped it with a Furutech copper male connector. But, the real reason I chose the strip was twofold: 1) it was fairly robust and yet cheap, by any audio standard, and 2) it had actual (traditionally shaped) duplexes contained inside (not just a single-file row of individual outlets). That allowed me the use of QDS in the power strip.
I suspect your strip will be a little more involved than my own, but I can't stress enough how huge these little things have been in my own system. ALL AC outlets ring, some more than others, but they all ring. Ideally you could use QDS on every duplex and wall switch in your home(!). Expensive?? It would surely add up, especially in a big house, but in view of my own experience with them (I have more than a dozen of them and have just ordered more) that would likely be worth every penny. These things have only been on the market about a year or so and, although Alan is on the verge of debuing at his only brick-and-mortar store in Nashville in a matter of days, Facebook has up to now been the only way to get his stuff. His group of follwers on FB have knowingly signed up to buy his products understanding that they are the 'guinnea pigs' that he is testing his products out on so he can finalize which of them he will be bringing to market (along with his business partners, but it's Alan whom I believe runs the R&D). For example and to give you some idea, I just ordered a pair of equipment stands from him at $350 each (they are of the new type that offer both vibration control and electronic noise reduction in one device, but operate on a completely new and different princple than any offered by the competition). He says he'll offer them again after his store has opened, but, in agreement not to undercut his partners, he will necessarily sell them at what will be their retail price: "at 4 times the [$350] price". He says he has to do that just to be taken seriously next to all the $5k+ power conditioners out there that these things will match or beat...so, if you can buy all that then maybe you can see what I mean about what a buyer's market his site really is at the moment. No word on how much the QDS will increase to, if even at all. In return FB members get the chance to buy some pretty cutting-edge stuff at extemely little over actual cost, before what will inevitably be the more customary high-end mark-up is tacked on. I myself am into AMD already to the tune of nearly $4k, but I now consider that fundamentally more important than the $5.5 system, itself, that I own. Of course, you could just start with $20, but I do warn you, these little things are the Lays potato chips of the audio world. And nope, not affiliated with AMD in any way.
Regards. John
Inside the copper strip is a proprietary piece of paper that aids in its effectiveness, although I'm not sure what it is exactly or what its role is. But, I do know that there is a silver version ($45) and a gold version (usually $60, but market price on that one) as well. The Gold QDS offers the most noise reduction of the 3. Also, each type of QDS can sublely affect system voicing, silver offering more extention and gold more bass articulation and overall warmth, and so on. The silver version is known to do nice things for video, too.
My own DIY strip is a simple, plain-jane $30 Home Depot strip whose (captive) AC cord I cut to a manageable length and then capped it with a Furutech copper male connector. But, the real reason I chose the strip was twofold: 1) it was fairly robust and yet cheap, by any audio standard, and 2) it had actual (traditionally shaped) duplexes contained inside (not just a single-file row of individual outlets). That allowed me the use of QDS in the power strip.
I suspect your strip will be a little more involved than my own, but I can't stress enough how huge these little things have been in my own system. ALL AC outlets ring, some more than others, but they all ring. Ideally you could use QDS on every duplex and wall switch in your home(!). Expensive?? It would surely add up, especially in a big house, but in view of my own experience with them (I have more than a dozen of them and have just ordered more) that would likely be worth every penny. These things have only been on the market about a year or so and, although Alan is on the verge of debuing at his only brick-and-mortar store in Nashville in a matter of days, Facebook has up to now been the only way to get his stuff. His group of follwers on FB have knowingly signed up to buy his products understanding that they are the 'guinnea pigs' that he is testing his products out on so he can finalize which of them he will be bringing to market (along with his business partners, but it's Alan whom I believe runs the R&D). For example and to give you some idea, I just ordered a pair of equipment stands from him at $350 each (they are of the new type that offer both vibration control and electronic noise reduction in one device, but operate on a completely new and different princple than any offered by the competition). He says he'll offer them again after his store has opened, but, in agreement not to undercut his partners, he will necessarily sell them at what will be their retail price: "at 4 times the [$350] price". He says he has to do that just to be taken seriously next to all the $5k+ power conditioners out there that these things will match or beat...so, if you can buy all that then maybe you can see what I mean about what a buyer's market his site really is at the moment. No word on how much the QDS will increase to, if even at all. In return FB members get the chance to buy some pretty cutting-edge stuff at extemely little over actual cost, before what will inevitably be the more customary high-end mark-up is tacked on. I myself am into AMD already to the tune of nearly $4k, but I now consider that fundamentally more important than the $5.5 system, itself, that I own. Of course, you could just start with $20, but I do warn you, these little things are the Lays potato chips of the audio world. And nope, not affiliated with AMD in any way.
Regards. John