$10 vs $100 power plug

The difference is the spring tension and plating surface. My preference is Rhodium. The surface is expensive to implement, but hard and less scratch prone. The typical brass surface is fine the first few uses, but scratches and leaves mars in the surface. This causes micro-arcing and ultimately noise. The ideal is two mirror smooth surfaces making contact aka an airtight connection or as close as possible. How much audio improvement will there be? Who knows? The improvements are typically overstated, but this is a small part of a lot of potential tweaks which, when added up may make a significant contribution. Depends on how crummy your parts are now and dedicated lines, wire gauge etc. If you pursue doing all you can, this is a relatively cheap tweak considering other things. It is all relative. Jallen

Most people don't realize that the AC outlets on their prized line conditioner is put together with AC outlets that are of the .49 cent variety, and the wire attaching to it is contacting a surface the thickness of a credit card, and loose contact at that. I changed my line conditioners outlets and they too were of this variety. I have changed many home AC outlets, and you can easily see the results of a "bad connection" with the tell-tale marks of heat up the wire with the blueish discoloration, the brittle insulation which has been heated far too long, and the impending wall fire. This is the start of many house fires. Bottom line is that there are a lot of variables that are ignored, and the focus is on the "power cord" or some small part of the equation. What good is an 8 gauge cord with credit card contact on the wire inside the conditioner. It is essential to look at the whole equation. Failure to do so results in fixing things which aren't broken. Jallen