Law of "increasing returns" Oyaide AC outlet/plug


We are all familar with the law of decreasing returns, where twice as much money spent on a system will often not return twice the improvement, etc.

But I believe one of the big benefits of high end audio is the law of increasing returns, where a small improvement can yield big gains.

Tonight I installed the just on the market Oyaide berylium (platinum and palladium too) R-1 AC receptacle and P-004 male plug.

These replaced a standard wall outlet and heavy duty male end on a romex extension cable which feeds my system. I trimmed back the in wall cable to expose fresh cable before connecting it to the receptacle, and painted all solid core cable with Qicksilver extreme silver gold.

I probably would have gotten even more of an improvement had I been able to bypass the AC conectors alltogether- just hardwiring the extension to the existing housewire or better yet a dedicated run from the breakerbox, but being an apartment renter subject to inspections by the landlord, niether was practical, so I improved what I could.

My point is, for around $200 (and could I have hardwired it would have been free) I have gotten a massive upgrade. It sounds like I upgraded a source component, and the plugs haven't even broken in yet.

On a mid-fi system, I doubt one could have heard any improvement, and on a lesser system, maybe a little improvement.

This I believe is the big bargain in high end. Having such a revealing system opens one up to free and relatively (for this hobby) low cost upgrades that really improve fidelity, and I count that as an "increasing return."
emailists
I have gotten a massive upgrade

Good for you. I sometimes wish I could get massive improvements from small changes. I am unlucky I guess...usually differences are subtle even on major electronic component changes.
My friend locally had two different Oyaide AC outlets side by side and I was amazed at the sound difference between the two but how each was far superior to the Hubbell he had used previously. This is a great tweak and I agree with your comments.
Emailists,
I totally agree with you. I spent over half the day at a local Hi end store today, and listened to systems sooo much more money then mine...guess what. My home theater highly modded and tweaked with tons of attention to all areas of ac was on another par. Its like I can hear through all the cloudiness, veil, harmonic distortions that plauges the music on the systems at the local hi fi store.

There just seems to be less in the way of the music in a well modded and tweaked system. I've have always said the 3 big things that destroy an audio signal (no matter the cost) without attention is,

AC
resonance and vibration control
rf and emi control (especially in a big city near towers)
AFter posting this last night I listened to a Pablo Today LP, (Oscar Peterson trio, Night Train) that I recently bought.

I swear the cymbols now sound so real (I used to play drums- and cymbols are a pet peave with digital for me) that I don't think a real cymbol in the room would sound much more real. I'm sure it would sound "different" to a blindfolded listener, but probably not significantly more "real"

The more I play with getting better power, the more I think that good power is the basis for any good audio system, and is why I got such a large improvement in sound.

I read about the $4000 gold plated circuit breaker box - and desperately want one, (and would buy it if we didn't rent ourt apartment.
After reading this, I am more excited to get my oyaide xxx outlet that should be here this week. I am going to install it in my BPT 3.5 sig and will have an easy time to a/b it.
Freemand do yourself a favor and get some Quicksilver Extreme gold to coat the ends of the wire before making the connection.

While I have not done a A/B, the idea that 2 metals touching have surface irregularities that stop perfect contact seems to make sense and can only be enhanced by the Quickslilver. Or better yet split the cost with a friend - you can probably treat hundreds of connections with that amll vial of conductive paint.
emailists,

I totally agree. I have the mapleshade silclear and at times I am stunned how well it works. I painstakinly for hours took apart my Hydra to treat all the contact points and was stunned how much better it performed. The video on my dvd even improved. I did the same thing on my bpt sig 3.5 before I even installed it the first time knowing it was worth it to what it did to the Hydra. When I sell the hydra, someone will be happy!

What I am more curious about is how does sil clear do compared to your quicksilver gold? Not sure if anyone knows that.
Though I never compared the 2 formulas, I read opinions of the two and picked what I thought would work for me.
Hi there,

I'd like to chime in and add my endorsement to the oyaide products.

First I changed the wall receptacle feeding my cd and preamp to the oyaide SWO-XXX (Gold/Palladium). An immediate improvement was noted in reduction of grain and sibilance.

Impressed by this I later changed the wall plug end of my Cardas golden reference power cord that feeds my cd player from the cheap hubbell to the XXX plug. Wow! Tighter bass, greater transparency, better hf extension, more fleshed out vocals etc. Couple of weeks later changed the IEC plug from the original one, which looked pretty cheap, to the XXX. Further reinforced all the earlier improvements. There appears to be no downside to the changes I've made, unlike many other tweaks. The improvements I've gained are in the league of a major component upgrade. My system has never sounded better. I have no affiliation to oyaide, just a very happy customer. For the outlay, its a no brainer.

Next on my to-do list is to replace both ends of my ESP the Essence pc that I use on my power amp to oyaide, as they are coming out with a 20 amp IEC soon.

I'm using Argento powercord 1 for my cd player. I'm not so keen to change the plugs on this as it looks like they are of high quality.

System:
Krell SACD Standard
Krell KRC-HR pre
Krell FPB300 power
Aerial Acoustics 10T

Cheers
Mick