Outlets

If you have some sort of surge protection between the outlet and the component, does that mean that the quality of the outlet is less important? I live in a heavy thunder storm area (lots of big booms). I'm getting some sort of whole-house surge protection, which will be before the outlet, but I'm still wondering whether these posts assume that the component is connected directly to the outlet, without any intervening surge protection.

You will not be completely protected against surges and distant lightning strikes with just a whole house protector. You will also need something in front of your electronics, or unplug them every time there is a threat. Unless you are able to claim them under insurance, you will have to buy a surge protector for the electronics. There is controversy about the effect on the sound. I figure I would rather have some effect of the sound than dead electronics. I am not always home when the storms come. How much effect depends on the surge unit you buy. There will be lots of opinions on this topic. The type of outlet you use will be a part of the continuum from electricity entering your house, to the sound coming out of your speakers. I doubt it will be the deciding factor, but that's just my skepticism.

What is the general opinion here on the Shunyata SR-z1 outlets?

I am pretty much decided on going with either those or Porter Ports.

Have not had good experiences with Oyaide or PS Audio stuff.

I've also gone through the PS Audio and Oyaide stuff. All added colorations that took away from the naturalness of the music. I've not heard the Shunyata, but the Porterport Hubbells let the music flow as naturally as possible. Bettering them for neutrality you'd have to hard-wire your power cords directly to the wall conductors from your breaker box and your home insurance wouldn't cover that route if you had an electrical fire.

Speaking of hard wiring, I hard wired/soldered the power cord of my high current balanced power transformer to the romex cable at the wall and it was a revelation and showed just how much that ALL outlets degrade the PRaT and sound quality.

I left it that way for a few weeks but the thought of not being able to quickly disconnect the unit from the wall in case of an emergency forced me to reinstall an outlet and AC plug and that led me to try different outlets and AC plugs and it was the Oyaide SWO-XXX/WPC-Z/Oyaide P-079 that came the closest to no outlet at that time and when the R1 was introduced, the R1/WPC-Z took that even closer. Of course, these results were in my system and one should NOT expect the exact same results in their system.

Oyaide outlets and plugs really do need to be used together as they form a very synergistic match when mated and of course one can "season to taste" the sound quality one is looking for by mixing and matching the outlets/plugs.

My interest is still piqued on the Porter Port though...

Cheers