Assessing quality of power

You would need a high-bandwidth oscilloscope to see how clean or dirty your incoming power is. Best bet would be to simply get a fairly inexpensive power conditioner like something from PS Audio and try it out. If you can't hear a difference, you can get most of your money back (if not all). Experimentation is really the best way to find out.

Arthur

I agree with Arthur. This is a complicated subject and you're going to have to assess your power-quality situation with your ears by auditioning pc's and/or regenerators and listening to judge the sonic changes. In addition, another consideration in deciding about the quality of your power is whether or not you feel you're getting the performance expected from the quality of your gear and system. If the answer right now is "no," then power-quality may play a part in under-performance. For me, based on my gear and system, plus the results others are getting with similar gear, I feel my setup is not playing up to it's potential.
I use a Shunyata Hydra 4 which is fairly well respected as a conditioner and don't feel that my front end gear and system sonics are up to potential. I've tried various changes to my system (electronics, etc.) Wanted to do dedicated lines but that's impractical for me in my current home. So I'm about to try a regenerator to see if that will raise the level of performance in my system. Some good questions to ask yourself are, "am I satisified with the sonics my system is producing? And, does my system seem to be performing up to it's potential or is it underperforming based on my gear?" The answers may help you judge your power situation.

OK, Looks like I have to try one to find out. It would be nice if the component gave you a message that it has been correcting voltage and how much of the sine wave it had to reconstruct. and how much electronic hash it blocked, sort of like an antivirus program ("We have found six viruses on your computer today"). Then you would know it was doing something.
Foster - Are you leaning toward PS audio, exact power, or something else?
Thanks for the input
Joe

I ordered a Purepower APS regenerator. Purepower says it's over 90% efficient and produces a steady 120 volt sine wave at 60 cycles even at full output. Suppose to run cool too.

Foster
When you have tried it, please let me know what you think about ease of use, any dynamic constriction and improvements
Thanks
Joe

I may be confusing this with something else, but I believe there was a thread where our good friend Sean created a device that was able to assess the power coming out of one's outlet(s). And, he offered to put it into a sort of "lending library" where people could use it for a time to perform the evaluation, then pass it back to him so that it would be available to the next person.

Again, I could be mistaken...

Trelja
Thanks for the tip. Do you know Sean's handle here on audiogon or his email address so I can query him?
Joe

Joe, his Audiogon username is "Sean". Maybe he'll chime into this thread. At any rate, I'm sure if you hooked up with him, he'd provide you with a wealth of information to get you started.