Upgrading power system

@boxcarman I presume your wiring from the main panel is 12/2 to your outlets?

Yes, 12/2 is the best I could get from my electrician.

I would have preferred better wording and checking some of your details. 'It weighted twice as much' Are you saying it is maid of lead or...?
It is 20 AMP. NO it is rated for a 20 amp circuit but it can not provide any more amperage than the circuit it is connected to.
I am a big fan of good power dist. but it needs to be presented on the Up & Up.
My DIY setup is Rated at 20 amps including the built in breaker but that should NEVERE be tripped as the circuit breaker in my breaker box is a 15 amp. This is all overhead and never should come into play. I can only guess that the reason you saw some improvement was from the metal on metal connection you achieved from the new sockets plated connections and that is a good thing and good plating should provide an elimination to corrosion, which provides for a continued performance upgrade.
What most people would see improvement here is what has already been stated many time's. 20 or more amp wiring and breakers in the house circuit itself.

I would have to guess that there is heavier gauge metal in the signal path of the outlet itself. The fuse in the breaker box is 20 amp rated and that is the only fuse in the power line.  I need to feed a 250 wpc amp and a 1000 watt sub, and source components from this line.  Somebody running less than that might not notice as much of an improvement.

Hi guys. I don’t mean to interrupt the conversation, but I might be interested in poking my head in it for a moment or two. For decades I have read about how many audiophiles have wanted to establish dedicated large gauge wired circuits with hundred dollar wall outlets, or power conditioning, to provide every milliamp of power available from their AC service to their speaker amps. I’m all for that, as I do the same. I get that. What I have a hard time understanding is that, IMO, it’s most times already there, without spending thousands of dollars on power conditioning and heavy gauge wiring. As I continue on, feel free to tell me what I’m missing here, and I’ll try to understand.

I think I know a little about AC for audio, so let me try to convey my thoughts here. First off, I hope everyone here is familiar with in-rush current. For those that aren’t, this is a momentary need for a large amount of current when an inductive device turns ON (for example, a refrigerator, dehumidifier, or air conditioner, etc.). Many times these in-rush values are in the 30-40 amp range, being pulled from non-dedicated 15 or 20 amp circuits (ie, there are other electrical devices on the same circuits). When this in-rush current takes place, not only are these spikes ignored by typical home circuit breakers, but the in-rush amps are almost always delivered on typical 15 and 20 amp wiring and circuits. If the wiring or circuit breaker wasn’t able to momentarily deliver this high current, your refrigerator, dehumidifier or air conditioner wouldn’t turn ON. IMO, momentary peak amplifier current draw could also be considered in-rush current.

I have an ammeter that is able to measure in-rush current (many ammeters aren’t capable of that). Since the conversation is revolving around improving home wiring for audio systems, I think this is the first time I ever placed my ammeter (set for measuring in-rush current) on my main audio system amplifier AC feed, while playing the passage of cannons on Telarc’s Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture CD (where they warn you that speaker damage can occur if you’re not careful when playing that passage in the song).

The ammeter was clamped on to the AC feed that provides power to my three Crown Com Tech 400 Amplifiers (which are rated at 220 watts per ch. into 8 ohms). This particular system (I have a few in my house) is a tri-amped system, with an active 3-way crossover. The ammeter was only attached to the amplifier power feed. The circuit for these amplifiers is a dedicated one, with a 10 AWG 15’ cable running from the circuit breaker box, connected to a 15 amp circuit breaker in the load center. The 10 AWG terminates (with correctly torqued AlumiConn wire connectors/nuts) to a Tripp Lite Isobar Ultra surge protector. To soften the in-rush to the amplifiers during turn-on, I also employ a 10 amp rated variable autotransformer (fed from the Tripp Lite Isobar Ultra).

So what I found was that when I initially turn ON the power switch on the autotransformer (without applying power to the power amps), an in-rush of 10. 3 amps occurred (that value is not always consistent, depending upon how recently the autotransormer was powered up, as it stores energy for a short period of time). After clearing that figure, I applied 120 volts to the amplifiers. As all three amplifiers sensed this voltage, they turned ON. The total in-rush current of these three amplifiers turning ON was 15.32 amps. Clearing the ammeter reading, I then played the cannons passage on the Telarc CD. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard this CD (Telarc 80041), but when the LP came out (I have that too), it was monumental, as it was one of the few recordings that was able to record these extremely loud cannons, and transfer it to vinyl (later to CD). If my amplifiers were ever going to draw peak power, it would definitely be while playing these cannons. So with my speakers blaring, the peak power consumed by all 3 amplifiers during this passage was only 1.85 amps. I admit, I expected a value that was going to be higher, for the amount of bass that my 15" bass drivers produced.

So from my POV, your home circuits are already able to deliver lots of peak amperage when needed. Improving on that I get, but I’m not sure there really is a need for some, when peak power is probably already there when needed.

Recording of October 1979: The Telarc 1812 Overture

BTW, after dealing with lightning strikes at radio stations for years, I have seen damage done from hundreds if not thousands of amps from lighting strikes discharged through 24 AWG telephone wires. And in that case, I'm pretty sure the wires were not current limiting from the damage sustained (as I mentioned in another post), as they didn't even vaporize.