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

Showing 3 responses by freemand

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 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.
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.