Receptacles... What works and why?

[P.I.]

Over the years i'vecome to realize some things when it comes to power transmission.  One of the heavy revvies has been the impact of power connectors in sound quality (SQ).  If someone had told me 12 years ago just how much connectors impact SQ, I would have yelled "foul", thrown the BS flag and told them they were daft.

Funny.  That turned out to be me.

Let's talk about what you have found to work and why. 

[rollo]

   First off Cryo treatment makes a difference. Plating is huge. Rhodium, copper, silver all sound different. Then the conductor material itself. Gold over copper is warm. Rhodium over copper neutral, Rhodium over silver is bright and so on.
   My favorite are all copper with deep cryo treatment. Furutech or Voodo.


charles

[dflee]

I have an older home (doesn't have ground wire) and wonder without it does it change how well the receptacle works sound wise?

Don

[rollo]

I have an older home (doesn't have ground wire) and wonder without it does it change how well the receptacle works sound wise?

Don

   Don why certainly it does. It is time for a 20Amp dedicated line unless you rent. No excuses. IMHO one of if not the most affective thing to do.
    Now any receptacle will sound better. A isolated ground even better.
    Now for you ground is on the neutral wire.  Do it do it do it do it. Oh did I say do it.


 
charles

[rollo]

  These sturdy P&S  5362 take serious time to break in. One month or slightly more.
   I want an all copper deep cryo treated receptacle. No plating. Hear me TWL and Dave. still waiting.


charles

[tmazz]

I have an older home (doesn't have ground wire) and wonder without it does it change how well the receptacle works sound wise?

Don

Don,

If you only have 2 wire receptacles your house is likely to have old fashioned metal (instead of plastic) outlet boxes and is wired with BX wire instead of Romex. If this is the case then you are in luck. The ground should be carried by the metal armor of the BX, which is clamped onto the outlet box, so the box itself is at ground potential. On a standard three prong receptacles, the ground lug screws into the same piece of metal that is used to screw the receptacle into the box. So if you have a grounded box all you need do is change the receptacle and you're good to go.

 That said, this will only work if the BX goes all the way back to your service panel. If somebody spliced in a plastic box somewhere else in the house without jumpering the grounds you will have a break in ground continuity and this won't help. I would recommend changing the outlet and then testing it with an  outlet checker like this:

http://smile.amazon.com/Sperry-Instruments-GFI6302-Outlet-Tester/dp/B000RUL2UU/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1456351980&sr=1-1&keywords=outlet+checker

That will tell you not only if your ground is good, but also if your hot and neutral wires are connected to the right sides. (When I bought my house I used one of these to check every outlet in the  house.)

BTW - I went for a dedicated line for my system and it was well worth the expense. Cost me $100 buck for the electrician and it was well worth it. Sounds like a lot just for an outlet, but considering what we all pay for cables I felt it was a bargain for what I got out of it sound wise. Even better, get two  lines put in at the same time., I won't cost that much more. If you have a high power amp you can put that on it's own breaker or use the two circuits to isolate digital components from the rest of your equipment. Well worth the effort.



 

[dflee]

Breaker!!! We don't need no stinkin breakers.
Everything here is fuses and there has been no renovation
in the house Thus all metal boxes. I am changing all the sockets one at a time cause the old ones are wearing out. Some actually have darkness around the slits. Will look into a dedicated some day cause there's a crawl space below so shouldn't be that hard. Any inexpensive sockets worth looking at?

Don

[P.I.]

I'm with tmazz.  Check to see if you have ground continuity back to the power entrance.  Another way to check is to see if you have continuity between the receptacle box and the neutral with resistances of < ~ 4 ohms.  If so you can bond to the receptacle box and be good.

OTOH, I typically run my gear Class 2 = ungrounded.  I DO NOT recommend this for most installations.  I'm absolutely sure of all of my gear, fusing and safety of these pieces of gear.  It works for me, but I'm not your typical user.  There is a lower noise floor possible as well as the lack of ground loops WHEN PROPERLY WIRED. 

Like I said.  You have to be very careful and pay attention to run ungrounded.

D.

[tmazz]

And if you are going to run ungrounded then it is particularly important to test your outlets with one of those outlet checker gizmos. You will need to use a three pron adapter and the tester will always show "ground Open" but you want to be especially sure that your hot and neutral lines lines are not swapped if you are choosing to give up the safety of a ground connection. And you can't just go by the wire colors because unless it is a home run outlet that you ran yourself you can never be certain that somebody else did not do a sloppy job and reverse the connections either at the box or a some kind of splice point along the circuit. Better safe than sorry.

[Werd]

I'm with tmazz.  Check to see if you have ground continuity back to the power entrance.  Another way to check is to see if you have continuity between the receptacle box and the neutral with resistances of < ~ 4 ohms.  If so you can bond to the receptacle box and be good.

OTOH, I typically run my gear Class 2 = ungrounded.  I DO NOT recommend this for most installations.  I'm absolutely sure of all of my gear, fusing and safety of these pieces of gear.  It works for me, but I'm not your typical user.  There is a lower noise floor possible as well as the lack of ground loops WHEN PROPERLY WIRED. 

Like I said.  You have to be very careful and pay attention to run ungrounded.

D.

Not only that, if he does any work he may be expected to include a ground and bring the dwelling up to code.

[P.I.]

And if you are going to run ungrounded then it is particularly important to test your outlets with one of those outlet checker gizmos. You will need to use a three pron adapter and the tester will always show "ground Open" but you want to be especially sure that your hot and neutral lines lines are not swapped if you are choosing to give up the safety of a ground connection. And you can't just go by the wire colors because unless it is a home run outlet that you ran yourself you can never be certain that somebody else did not do a sloppy job and reverse the connections either at the box or a some kind of splice point along the circuit. Better safe than sorry.

+1

Weekend warriors have left many surprises for the next guy way too often.  A polarity checker is good insurance for 5 bucks!

[tmazz]

And if you are going to run ungrounded then it is particularly important to test your outlets with one of those outlet checker gizmos. You will need to use a three pron adapter and the tester will always show "ground Open" but you want to be especially sure that your hot and neutral lines lines are not swapped if you are choosing to give up the safety of a ground connection. And you can't just go by the wire colors because unless it is a home run outlet that you ran yourself you can never be certain that somebody else did not do a sloppy job and reverse the connections either at the box or a some kind of splice point along the circuit. Better safe than sorry.

+1

Weekend warriors have left many surprises for the next guy way too often.  A polarity checker is good insurance for 5 bucks!

Dave, unfortunately it is not just weekend warriors that I worry about. There are too many alleged "professionals" out there that just do shoddy work. And in these not so great economic times too many carpenters and other tradesmen who just run in electric themselves rather than pay an electrician to subcontract.

The bottom line is that electricity fights back and when it does it's not pretty. So I make it a point to check everything, no matter who does the work. Before we bought the house I am in now there was some electrical work that needed to be done before closing so the sellers hired an electrician to come in and fix everything. I pulled out the tester and checked everything he did right in front of him before I would sign  off on the job as acceptable.

[Werd]

I have all my outlets loosened in the Torus. In the wall my Furutech is  not attached and just hangs. It has to anywys since I need a bigger outlet box to fit the outlet.

[Putz]

I'm looking to do a dedicated line for my AV system. If anyone knows of a good electrician in NJ for the job, please advise me.

[BobM]

I remember many oodles of years ago, Bob Crump recommended those Pass and Seymor outlets, but warned everyone that they required a month of break in. Nobody believed him, I mean what could possibly be breaking in? He actually went so far as to describe the changes he heard over a 30 day period.

So I got some of these outlets he recommended and low an behold, the sound of my system was all over the place for about a month or two. Great one day and flat and lifeless the next, only to be followed by shrill, then boomy, then great, then crap again. Finally everything evened out and the system sounded good again.

That experience convinced me once and for all that break-in is a real phenomenon.