Jim,
I knew Bob fairly well, he and I spoke on many occasions and I even negotiated with him for a Blowtorch when I was moving from Counterpoint and searching for the ultimate preamp. A mutual friend of Bob's was Fred Crowder who also lives in Houston (I'm in Dallas), Fred and I are much closer than Crump and I were. I call Fred from time to time just to hear his voice, he's a good guy and really loves this hobby.
As for wall plates, I had NO idea in 1988, in fact, I did not install dedicated AC runs for my system until 1991 and the "over the top" 14 run, multiple dedicated lines system I have now, was not until maybe ten years ago and the crazy outlet tests were just a few years ago.
I experimented with different outlets and the cover plate deal was purely by accident that I heard it. Granted it was small but I was surprised by the change.
Truth is, it was not all that many years ago that I laughed out loud when the first people claimed that power cables could help the sound of a system. I could NOT get past the thought that there were miles and miles of common wire out on the poles (with birds sitting on them :^) and now, past the breaker box and in-wall Romex we add a thick AC cable and get improved sound.
Reminded me of the guys with Japanese cars, tiny exhaust system all the way to the bumper and then a huge flare pipe to "improve" flow (yea, sure).
Finally Steve McCormack (McCormack Audio) who has been a good friend for more than 30 years said my logic was flawed and I should view it the other way around. The superior AC cable is an EXTENSION of the units power supply. You would not dumb down the power supply because of all the miles of wire before it. Anyway, the best AC cables do more than just pass current and voltage, many of them actually shield while scraping off RF and EMI.
We all learn as we evolve our systems, fortunately I am reasonably open minded about such things, perhaps because I'm an artist by profession or perhaps out of wishful thinking and hoping to make the music better :^).
Thank goodness there are people like Steve McCormack and others that push the boundaries so we can make things a bit more like the real thing.
I knew Bob fairly well, he and I spoke on many occasions and I even negotiated with him for a Blowtorch when I was moving from Counterpoint and searching for the ultimate preamp. A mutual friend of Bob's was Fred Crowder who also lives in Houston (I'm in Dallas), Fred and I are much closer than Crump and I were. I call Fred from time to time just to hear his voice, he's a good guy and really loves this hobby.
As for wall plates, I had NO idea in 1988, in fact, I did not install dedicated AC runs for my system until 1991 and the "over the top" 14 run, multiple dedicated lines system I have now, was not until maybe ten years ago and the crazy outlet tests were just a few years ago.
I experimented with different outlets and the cover plate deal was purely by accident that I heard it. Granted it was small but I was surprised by the change.
Truth is, it was not all that many years ago that I laughed out loud when the first people claimed that power cables could help the sound of a system. I could NOT get past the thought that there were miles and miles of common wire out on the poles (with birds sitting on them :^) and now, past the breaker box and in-wall Romex we add a thick AC cable and get improved sound.
Reminded me of the guys with Japanese cars, tiny exhaust system all the way to the bumper and then a huge flare pipe to "improve" flow (yea, sure).
Finally Steve McCormack (McCormack Audio) who has been a good friend for more than 30 years said my logic was flawed and I should view it the other way around. The superior AC cable is an EXTENSION of the units power supply. You would not dumb down the power supply because of all the miles of wire before it. Anyway, the best AC cables do more than just pass current and voltage, many of them actually shield while scraping off RF and EMI.
We all learn as we evolve our systems, fortunately I am reasonably open minded about such things, perhaps because I'm an artist by profession or perhaps out of wishful thinking and hoping to make the music better :^).
Thank goodness there are people like Steve McCormack and others that push the boundaries so we can make things a bit more like the real thing.