Wall outlets

@kennyc 

Yes, indeed, if you are using a shared circuit all the outlets are daisy-chained together.  Any corrosion or poor contacts filters downstream.  Also, if you can use the back-wire (not back stab) connections you get more metal in the connection between up and downstream. 

A simple hospital grade upgrade, even into a shared circuit, will help sound.

I’ve replaced at least half of the outlets in my home, and let me tell you, trust nothing. 🤣

If you are using a shared circuit, replace and clean every other outlet on the circuit as well. Doesn’t have to be platinum, cryo outlets, but do use at least Commercial/Residential and take the time to clean each wire with fine sandpaper.

You’d be amazed at the stuff I found in this 17 year young home. Totally worth doing.  Even my kitchen appliances run better.

A friend of mine is an electrician and has offered to install a new outlet behind my rack. He said I could pay with a case of beer.

When the zombie apocalypse hits it is people like that I'll miss the most.

I had really poor experience with the material quality of Furutech locking bananas, and I’ve stayed away from the brand ever since. If I ever spend money on boutique connectors again it will be on WBT.

No amount of cry-deep-space-cosmic-ray-treated hype will convince me to spend a penny on Furutech ever again.

Also did a whole write-up on Wattgate products.  The more I have worked with and used boutique connectors the less impressed I am and for outlets will absolutely stick to Leviton/Hubbell/Eaton where I'm never going to be worried about the material or design quality.

I had a Leviton hospital grade outlet from HD. It stripped the plating off the AQ Tornado AC plug, plugging and unplugging that cord several times.

I'm really not following why you blame the outlet and not Audioquest's cheap plating procedure.  Personally, I think the message here is that Audioquest's products don't hold up.

PS - I remind you all, as mentioned in my blog (below) that outlets for homes must be Tamper Resistant (TR) to meet the latest National Electric Code. .If you must go boutique please keep that in mind.

Hospital grade and Commercial grade outlets can be easily found with TR features.

More here:

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2022/01/audiophile-ac-outlets-for-frugal.html

hospital outlets would work but they can strip the coating off our nice power cables.

I’ve been around this forum a long time and yesterday is the very first time I’ve heard this ever happened. Before I believe this even happened I’d like to see pictures along with brand and model numbers. Also, if it did happen I’d blame a cheap plating process.

In other words: I call BS. Prove it ever happened or this is another UFO story. "I knew a guy who lived in Roswell who had a dog that claimed it saw aliens being taken out of escape pods...."

About Rhodium: It is so very pretty, and not a very good choice for any contact in audio, though I admit to using some RCA male plugs in a board a long time ago.

The issues are not just conductivity (as mentioned above) but also hardness. rhodium is almost as hard as Nickel (from my experience) and therefore wont’ deform at all. That’s BAD in a high current connector. You want it to deform at least a little so the contacts squeeze and get a grip. Basically in AC plugs rhodium on rhodium feels lubricated, like it can slip out easily. In a speaker spade with equally hard terminals you just can’t tighten the terminal enough for a reliable connection.

Copper is simply a far superior conductor AND has better grip strength. Next to that, gold plated copper because gold, unlike rhodium, is still soft.