Hey Rich,
By now, you have probably checked out the thread I started in the Self-Help or Do It Yourself (DIY) ward, labeled "Dedicated Subpanel," which is referenced and linked above. My original intention was to hard wire the "plug end" directly to a circuit breaker - but let me tell you what I have now, as your thinking here is identical to mine when I was installing my dedicated subpanel:
1) 60 Amp breaker in my main panel
2) 6 Guage stranded copper line to the subpanel - 20 foot run
3) Subpanel is tin plated copper
4) 5 Dedicated 20 amp breakers
5) 5 10 guage romex dedicated runs
6) 5 Oyaide SWO-XXX outlets
7) 3 Black Sand Cable (BSC) Silvers and 2 BSC Violets
Wire connections at the box coated with a clear antioxidation gel. Wire connections at the outlets coated with Caigs Pro Gold. All plugs and IEC (I don't know what this stands for) coated with Caigs Pro Gold.
As you can see, other than hard wiring, my components are getting all the "dinner" they can digest, and it is a very open and clear sound.
Why did I not hardwire anything?
1) I am a risk taker, but imagined my house burning down, perhaps even for some other reason (because I wired this stuff perfectly) and having to live in a tent in the ashes for a long while.
That aside though:
2) There is the belief - and granted, only belief as far as I "know" - that power cords condition the electricity before going into your beloved components. The evidence for this belief is that power cords do cause systems to sound different. Therefore, they are conditioning the sound. Do you think Romex will condition your system in a direction that you want? This is a question you should seriously consider.
3) The equipment you have was probably developed with the electricity coming through a relatively stock power cord, not the rush that would be provided by a hardwired set-up. So, one should ask: What is the impact of such an open source on the signal? Could it be too bright, too forward.
In fact, right now, I am struggling with this with just the set-up that I have, but noticed that in my new house, I moved not too long ago, that my system was sounding edgy and bright at the high end even before I installed the subpanel. I think this could be due to some old tubes??? However, I wonder if the dedicated and open flow of power is adding to this. At the same time, there is sooo much detail and clarity, it is very pleasing in this regard - and this is from the subpanel, dedicated lines, and was further improved by the BSC cords; I wonder how much the Oyaides help with this, and suspect that they do. Nonetheless, the harshness is unacceptable and I will be trying some different tubes - hoping that's it. If not, then I'll be trying the softer sounding Oyaide outlets, but probably after trying some relatively cheap brass outlets. In a way, I am pretty happy, because now I have to work to soften a system with a tube pre-amp and a tube dac. More reason to feed the audioneurotic beast!!!
4) Once you hardwire, that's pretty much it, your committed. Because of my belief in the conditioning aspect of power cords - otherwise why would they sound different - I was going to hardwire the plug end to the circuit breaker, i.e., just an open wire, but keep the IEC end, so as not to mess up my components. However, I realized that I would be messing up some expensive power cords that I almost surely (no reference to Brian here) could not resell. So, what if I change components or just decided that my powercords weren't the ones I wanted to use, or even wanted to try a different power cord? I suppose I could rig an outlet and use a plug and then cut off the plug. However, this too could change the sound in unpredictable ways, and then again, if I didn't like it, I'd have some cut cables, of little use, other than hanging myself.