3D, I'll take that as a positive, rather than a negative response to my search for understanding - and put away the 'profound ignorance' remark (profundity might have virtue in itself, I suppose).
I've re-read the references you posted yesterday evening, and will do so again.
So, I understand that hifi is obviously very heavily dependent upon the peculiarities of electricity, both for power and for transmission of signal . As an owner of a multi-component hifi system, with several options open to me, I'd like to understand more about these peculiarities - and the effect that these have on sound quality (faithful reproduction).
I have 4 components, the first three of which need power from the mains:
transport + dac/digi-pre + switch poweramp + speakers.
Having paid a little attention to timing and jitter (at the front end: transport & dac), further options include:
1. mains power & mains cabling (and various configurations therein)
2. moving to balanced for interconnect between dac/pre and poweramp
3. curing the 'hiss' that comes from my speakers when system is on but no Cd is playing
On the first, I've been impressed by battery powered systems - and hence thoughts about 'never' connected.
On the second, is the following held to be true? "The fundamental interface problem stems from the fact that once noise contaminates a signal, it's nearly impossible to remove the noise."
On the third, the 'hiss' is product of much upstream, but what?
[I declare that my only involvement on 'the industry' is as a consumer - largely of s/h goods]