Oyaide R-1 outlets

vinylphilemag

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Hi all,

From the research I have conducted, it seems that the Oyaide R-1 (together with their matching WPC-Z covers) are the ne plus ultra in AC outlets. I'm planning to run a few dedicated power lines to my music room, so I'm considering using them (despite the relatively immense cost they imply!).

Some (most?) AC outlets allow the user to decide whether both sockets of a pair are on the same circuit or different circuits by removing a jumper. I'd like to do this with my new power set up but would like to know does the R-1 have this ability? It's not something covered by the specs I've found, and the photos I've seen are inconclusive. I know that at least two people here have some of the R-1 outlets, so I'd like to ask them to confirm the situation for me. What's the scoop? Is it possible to have two circuits on a single R-1 recepticle, or they restricted to only one circuit?

Many thanks!
 

RUR

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Apr 20, 2010
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Rich, I'm going to make a well-intentioned suggestion and then I'll bow out of this thread. Save your money and limit your purchase to hospital-grade outlets, which actually do provide (or at least are tested for) better grip, which is useful for heavy power cords. AFAIK, only Hubbell and Leviton make them and Leviton is, by far, the less expensive, costing ~$8 per.

As for splitting up the duplex, the photo of the Oyaide only shows one screw per side. I interpret this to mean that the wiring for the two receptacles cannot be split, since most duplex receptacles have two screws per side (one for each receptacle), connected electrically by a brass plate jumper which may be removed.
 

naturephoto1

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Hi all,

From the research I have conducted, it seems that the Oyaide R-1 (together with their matching WPC-Z covers) are the ne plus ultra in AC outlets. I'm planning to run a few dedicated power lines to my music room, so I'm considering using them (despite the relatively immense cost they imply!).

Some (most?) AC outlets allow the user to decide whether both sockets of a pair are on the same circuit or different circuits by removing a jumper. I'd like to do this with my new power set up but would like to know does the R-1 have this ability? It's not something covered by the specs I've found, and the photos I've seen are inconclusive. I know that at least two people here have some of the R-1 outlets, so I'd like to ask them to confirm the situation for me. What's the scoop? Is it possible to have two circuits on a single R-1 receptacle, or they restricted to only one circuit?

Many thanks!

Hi Rich,

I have the Oyaide R-1 Receptacles that were not only cryoed but also "cooked" by Chris of VH Audio. I also purchased the Oyaide WPC-Z covers which I have placed over 2 of the 5 R-1 receptacles. Additionally, I have the cryoed Romex wire from VH Audio running to 4 of the Oyaide R-1 receptacles. All was purchased from Chris of VH Audio. All run on 20 amp lines, but to the best of my knowledge you can not separate each outlet of the receptacles. I am however very happy with the overall results, but there is no question that all of the Oyaide products and the cryoed Romex was expensive.

If you have questions about this, you may wish to contact Chris at VH Audio. Also, to the best of my knowledge, Chris is the only vendor to offer the Oyaide R-1 receptacles in the from the factory version (Cryoed I think) and the "cooked" and Cryoed version. Chris only charges about $15 more for the "cooking" of the receptacles.

Rich
 
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FrantzM

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Hi

I take it as a matter of principle to respect the observational recollection of my fellow audiophiles. If you hear it and it improves your system by all means go for it. I would however second RUR here and do exactly as he said.. bow out .

I would suggest you to buy one or two of your favored Audiophile approved brand, cryo-treated, secretly cooked and with nano-carbon-fiber faceplate, if you must but since the "normal" Hospital grade outlet cost so much less about $10 each. (Hubell looks very stout), buy two or three of these as well . Install them and listen with your mind open... If you find the cryo-treated thing to make a difference ..well go for it .. else (most likely) you would have saved yourselves a few hundred of dollars toward better anything else, from music to hardware or even better room treatment ..
I apologize for this intrusion. I am out .
 

MylesBAstor

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Hi

I take it as a matter of principle to respect the observational recollection of my fellow audiophiles. If you hear it and it improves your system by all means go for it. I would however second RUR here and do exactly as he said.. bow out .

I would suggest you to buy one or two of your favored Audiophile approved brand, cryo-treated, secretly cooked and with nano-carbon-fiber faceplate, if you must but since the "normal" Hospital grade outlet cost so much less about $10 each. (Hubell looks very stout), buy two or three of these as well . Install them and listen with your mind open... If you find the cryo-treated thing to make a difference ..well go for it .. else (most likely) you would have saved yourselves a few hundred of dollars toward better anything else, from music to hardware or even better room treatment ..
I apologize for this intrusion. I am out .

Here's the thing Frantz. If you're living in an apt. or a house with the original AC receptacles, the sockets are probably in dreadful shape. Let's face it: they put the cheapest receptacles in the wall that they could that are UL approved and meet building code. I've taken numerous AC receptacles from the wall and I've had them literally fall apart in my hands. The plastic has deteriorated, the contacts are pitted and arced, etc. Putting new AC receptacles, even the Hubble hospital grade, though I don't recommend them necessarily because they use nickel plating, lowers the system's noise floor, increases low level resolution, decreases harshness and grain, etc. It to me is one of the most cost efficient improvements an audiophile can make to their system next to making sure that the AC receptacles/equipments polarity is correct.
 

FrantzM

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Myles

If the OP is OK with this I am willing to debate it ... I have never been convinced, even less proven of the incidence of this few square inches of nickel plating on AC.
I truly will bow out of this and if needs be we will take our discussion elsewhere.
Let's always keep things in perspective. I am fond to say that one person sneeze cannot disturb the Earth orbit. When we are talking about here is the following. The most precise digital multimeter may not be able to measure the resistance difference between a meter of copper and a meter of silver for say 10 AWG. Just can't... For that you need a lab-grade resistance meter.. that may cost as much as today's typical audiophile monoblocks...How do we think then that s few microns of plating would make a iota of difference? I am not sure there exist any lab-grade resistance meter that can measure the resistance of these microns of plating .. too many zeros it is in the pico ohms maybe ....
I am with you that Good AC does make a difference , I have held that view for a long time and have preached it, almost. I have observed it personally. When someone, however, invokes this few microns as making a difference I would beg to differ.
Concerning lower noise floor. That's the new audiophile catch-all expression ...that means not much IMHO. Every tweak becomes that , it lowers the noise floor, etc.. Guess what? Taking good FUNDAMENTAL care of your AC does that and truly does that .. I would dare to say measurably does that...

How does one take care of AC? You remove the nasties by proper filtering. You keep its voltage and frequency constant. You also make sure that there is enough of it as not to starve your system. That's how...... Not by using Silver over Rhodium outlets (Gold would have been better, since it comes after copper in term of resistivity) for the last immeasurably and IMO irrelevant millimeters. It cannot do anything ... and what does the carbon fiber cover brings to the equation? Really??? really ?
So you can tell I find the idea counterproductive .. But if one does think these make a difference ... Go for it .. My experiences and in systems of the highest caliber , by the way , is that they don't make anything that could warrant their brutal prices ..
I am out of this .. We can take this to another thread if you want..


My apologies, again to the original poster for hi-jacking your thread ... This, IMO needed to be stated.
 
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Bruce B

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I have Oyaide R-1 outlets in the studio and I have 2 "hospital grade" Hubbell outlets in there as well. I'm using JPS Aluminata PC's and over time, the Hubbell outlets lost their grip and the PC's started falling out. Granted, the PC's are very heavy. I also work in a hospital and am very familiar with how much grip they're supposed to have so they won't get inadvertently pulled out by patients. As far as sound, I won't go into that either.

I also use JPS in-wall cable, which is very heavy and awkward to work with, and the R-1 outlets were the only ones that would accept the multi-strand 10awg sufficiently!
 

vinylphilemag

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As for splitting up the duplex, the photo of the Oyaide only shows one screw per side. I interpret this to mean that the wiring for the two receptacles cannot be split, since most duplex receptacles have two screws per side (one for each receptacle), connected electrically by a brass plate jumper which may be removed.

That's what I thought... :-(

I'm not sold on the outlets yet, just doing some fanciful thinking and research before I and several dedicated circuits to my audio room.
 

vinylphilemag

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Hi Rich,

I have the Oyaide R-1 Receptacles that were not only cryoed but also "cooked" by Chris of VH Audio. I also purchased the Oyaide WPC-Z covers which I have placed over 2 of the 5 R-1 receptacles. Additionally, I have the cryoed Romex wire from VH Audio running to 4 of the Oyaide R-1 receptacles. All was purchased from Chris of VH Audio. All run on 20 amp lines, but to the best of my knowledge you can not separate each outlet of the receptacles. I am however very happy with the overall results, but there is no question that all of the Oyaide products and the cryoed Romex was expensive.

You were one of the people I was thinking of that had the R-1s. :)

I guess the inability to separate the two sockets explains why Oyaide also make the WPC-Z2 double width face plates.
 

vinylphilemag

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Apr 30, 2010
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Myles

If the OP is OK with this I am willing to debate it ... I have never been convinced, even less proven of the incidence of this few square inches of nickel plating on AC.
I truly will bow out of this and if needs be we will take our discussion elsewhere.

No apologies needed, and I am more than happy for the debate to happen in this thread. I find both sides interesting...
 

naturephoto1

Member
May 24, 2010
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That is interesting, as I am intending to wire the circuits with 10 guage wire...

Hi Rich,

The cryoed Romex that I purchased from Chris of VH Audio is quite heavyy and is 10 gauge. I know that the electricians that installed the wire were quite impressed with the thickness and indicated that I could have used it for a 30 amp circuit. We could only run it and fish it through the walls and were unable to run and fish it through the ceiling for the outlet if I installed a projector.

Again, it may be worth contacting Chris of VH Audio about this product.

http://www.vhaudio.com/wire.html#bulkacwire



Rch
 
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MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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Myles

If the OP is OK with this I am willing to debate it ... I have never been convinced, even less proven of the incidence of this few square inches of nickel plating on AC.
I truly will bow out of this and if needs be we will take our discussion elsewhere.
Let's always keep things in perspective. I am fond to say that one person sneeze cannot disturb the Earth orbit. When we are talking about here is the following. The most precise digital multimeter may not be able to measure the resistance difference between a meter of copper and a meter of silver for say 10 AWG. Just can't... For that you need a lab-grade resistance meter.. that may cost as much as today's typical audiophile monoblocks...How do we think then that s few microns of plating would make a iota of difference? I am not sure there exist any lab-grade resistance meter that can measure the resistance of these microns of plating .. too many zeros it is in the pico ohms maybe ....
I am with you that Good AC does make a difference , I have held that view for a long time and have preached it, almost. I have observed it personally. When someone, however, invokes this few microns as making a difference I would beg to differ.
Concerning lower noise floor. That's the new audiophile catch-all expression ...that means not much IMHO. Every tweak becomes that , it lowers the noise floor, etc.. Guess what? Taking good FUNDAMENTAL care of your AC does that and truly does that .. I would dare to say measurably does that...

How does one take care of AC? You remove the nasties by proper filtering. You keep its voltage and frequency constant. You also make sure that there is enough of it as not to starve your system. That's how...... Not by using Silver over Rhodium outlets (Gold would have been better, since it comes after copper in term of resistivity) for the last immeasurably and IMO irrelevant millimeters. It cannot do anything ... and what does the carbon fiber cover brings to the equation? Really??? really ?
So you can tell I find the idea counterproductive .. But if one does think these make a difference ... Go for it .. My experiences and in systems of the highest caliber , by the way , is that they don't make anything that could warrant their brutal prices ..
I am out of this .. We can take this to another thread if you want..


My apologies, again to the original poster for hi-jacking your thread ... This, IMO needed to be stated.

Ferromagnetic material in every applications I've heard it in, RCA connectors, leads, AC sockets, etc, sucks. Just adds an upper midrange brightness and distortion (actually the ear perceives some distortions as FR aberrations); that's also what Jung and Curl talked about in their seminal article on caps.

Another example was the original Townshend Seismic sink. Didn't care for it under my amps and turned out it was made of steel that could have been messing with the magnetic fields of the transformers.
 

FrantzM

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The oroginal poster has given approval so I will soldier on.

First ANY 10 AWG should be able to carry more than 30 Amps.. As a matter of fact 55 amps is the upper limit from the NEC under their standard condition (90 deg, free air, etc) so 30 amps i s easy for ANy 10 AWG cable. Second if it is 10 AWG is a measure of cross section, thus 10 AWG from any supplier has the same cross section. Sheathing/insulation may be different . IOW the conductors inside have the exact same diameter and likely same earth-obtained copper ...
Now what is thew science behind Cryo treatment? This is one of the aspects in my beleoved High ENd Audio that maddens me the most. Taking some science and infusing it with esoterica and pseudo-science:
It is known that when submitted to very low temperatures, some of the material properties of certain metal or metal alloys change, Specially their mechanical characteristics... permanently. No such change have been studied in term of ELECTRICAL characteristics however ... You will find all kind of reference to the real change in mechanical characteristics of metal after cryogenic treatment and likely none on their resistivity ..It is also know that under close to absolute zero (0 deg K) there is a phenomenon known as superconductivity in which the Resistance of a metal drop to zero .. The thing is this cannot happen in Copper or Silver becuase of the impurities in them so 99.99999999999% OFC is not completely copper it has trce of other thing in it that makes it oxygen free maybe but not other impurities-free so it won't show Zero Ohm at near O deg K. It will always show some resistance albeit very, very very, small.. The resistance of course returns to normal as soon as the conductor is brought to normal temperature .. One of the dream of scientist is to find a metal or alloy that would exhibit superconductivity at room temperature.... These audiophile companies may have found it .. NASA and a long list of richly endowed research Laboratories would be banging at their doors with check fatter than the Estates of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and all the billinaires in the world combined!!! This search is real and would open a new vista in science, in technology .. The world would hchange .. What we see in Scinece Fiction (well a lot of that) would be possible ... Same as controlled nuclear fusion but I digress .. Sooo what does cryo does to a metal in term of electrical properties , permanently ... Not much to say about that ...

Now for the distortion of ferro magnetic material... All dynamic speakers use some kind of ferro magnetic material.. Transformers in tube amplifiers and in SS use Ferro magnetic material.. Inductors in crossover likely use those and so do Pick-up cartridges ... One could always point toward the electrostatic that don't use Ferro-magnetic material but alas .. they use it in their transformers at least if not their stator .. R2R are ferro-magnetism based, from the tape heads to the tape itself .. else they don't play and since among the best music were recorded with these ....
So in audio and in real life we are surrounded by these ... How come we don' hear them then ? .. A long winded way to say that I don't see the correlation .. I don't know what one has heard through some connectors .. I have my ferocious doubt but ferro magnetism makes music possible so let's not deem it an evil ..

Conclusion ... If one hears difference from those fancy and good looking outlets and connectors and PC... by all means go for these. It's your money and even your right to dispose of your ...disposable .. income any way you see fit ... else Invest in serious Power Quality for your system .. That would be a much better proposition.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
81
1,725
New York City
Hi

The oroginal poster has given approval so I will soldier on.

First ANY 10 AWG should be able to carry more than 30 Amps.. As a matter of fact 55 amps is the upper limit from the NEC under their standard condition (90 deg, free air, etc) so 30 amps i s easy for ANy 10 AWG cable. Second if it is 10 AWG is a measure of cross section, thus 10 AWG from any supplier has the same cross section. Sheathing/insulation may be different . IOW the conductors inside have the exact same diameter and likely same earth-obtained copper ...
Now what is thew science behind Cryo treatment? This is one of the aspects in my beleoved High ENd Audio that maddens me the most. Taking some science and infusing it with esoterica and pseudo-science:
It is known that when submitted to very low temperatures, some of the material properties of certain metal or metal alloys change, Specially their mechanical characteristics... permanently. No such change have been studied in term of ELECTRICAL characteristics however ... You will find all kind of reference to the real change in mechanical characteristics of metal after cryogenic treatment and likely none on their resistivity ..It is also know that under close to absolute zero (0 deg K) there is a phenomenon known as superconductivity in which the Resistance of a metal drop to zero .. The thing is this cannot happen in Copper or Silver becuase of the impurities in them so 99.99999999999% OFC is not completely copper it has trce of other thing in it that makes it oxygen free maybe but not other impurities-free so it won't show Zero Ohm at near O deg K. It will always show some resistance albeit very, very very, small.. The resistance of course returns to normal as soon as the conductor is brought to normal temperature .. One of the dream of scientist is to find a metal or alloy that would exhibit superconductivity at room temperature.... These audiophile companies may have found it .. NASA and a long list of richly endowed research Laboratories would be banging at their doors with check fatter than the Estates of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and all the billinaires in the world combined!!! This search is real and would open a new vista in science, in technology .. The world would hchange .. What we see in Scinece Fiction (well a lot of that) would be possible ... Same as controlled nuclear fusion but I digress .. Sooo what does cryo does to a metal in term of electrical properties , permanently ... Not much to say about that ...

Now for the distortion of ferro magnetic material... All dynamic speakers use some kind of ferro magnetic material.. Transformers in tube amplifiers and in SS use Ferro magnetic material.. Inductors in crossover likely use those and so do Pick-up cartridges ... One could always point toward the electrostatic that don't use Ferro-magnetic material but alas .. they use it in their transformers at least if not their stator .. R2R are ferro-magnetism based, from the tape heads to the tape itself .. else they don't play and since among the best music were recorded with these ....
So in audio and in real life we are surrounded by these ... How come we don' hear them then ? .. A long winded way to say that I don't see the correlation .. I don't know what one has heard through some connectors .. I have my ferocious doubt but ferro magnetism makes music possible so let's not deem it an evil ..

Conclusion ... If one hears difference from those fancy and good looking outlets and connectors and PC... by all means go for these. It's your money and even your right to dispose of your ...disposable .. income any way you see fit ... else Invest in serious Power Quality for your system .. That would be a much better proposition.

I unfortunately can't put my hands on the Audio Amateur article at the moment online (my copy is probably in storage). Lot to do with non-linear type distortions.

One needs to have an open mind and listen first....shoulda, woulda, coulda often apply in both directions.
 

FrantzM

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Apr 20, 2010
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One definitely needs an open mind. One also has to profess healthy skepticism. Else one starts believing in Santa Claus.

There is a probability that one could put water on a stove and have it become ice... (The probability of such event occurring is incredibly small : If ALL the atoms in the known universe were furnaces with water on them it would not have happened, yet) That a few microns of immeasurable resistance would have a "huge" discernible and identifiable impact on the sound is that kind of order of probability in my book. I hasten to repeat that I am not a flat-earther: I am an audiophile and fancy to call myself a purist. . I don't think every component sound the same! No.. I am saying to any audiophile who cares to ask that a fancy outlet cryo-treated and with a fancy carbon faceplate will make NO discernible contribution to his or her system. Visually it will look different depending on your aesthetics sensibilities. If a person want to have a good electrical connection Hospital grade will do and cost 10 times less..
I also know that there is such a thing as the power of suggestion. Else there would be no reasons for companies to pay so much for commercials. SO There is such a thing as bias of expectation and sight bias and many others. We can be lead to believe in quite a few things....

We can not eliminate all biases but understanding (some of ) the Science behind our AV systems can eliminate or reduce the impact of many biases. It will also bring our enjoyment to a higher level with respect to our cash outlay, our investment ...
 

Phillyb

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2012
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R1's were just plain bright. You can always change the sound with tweaks, but that does not mean they make it better, just different, but if you like it that all that matters.
 

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