Daisy chaining Line Conditioners

I spoke with Joe the owner of Art Audio today about his amps and if plugging them into my Equi-Tech would be fine and he had something interesting to say besides 'yes, it'd be fine.' He said that the reason amps often don't sound any better and sometimes worse when plugged into a line conditioner is that the amps aren't designed to have a transformer placed before the amp's input transformer which causes the electrical values of the amp's component's to be thrown off. (Sorry, that's the extent of my electrical parlance, and I'm paraphrasing Joe at best.) This is also why Mr Go of my First Sound preamp company is pretty adamant about plugging his preamps direclty into the wall and not into line conditioners except that he's too much of a gentleman to speak in these harsh terms. Just some thoughts for the good and betterment of the hobby . . .

Hi, I have all my equipment plugged into an Equitech 2Q balanced isolation transformer. Between the wall and the 2Q is a PS Audio high current Ultimate Outlet. The UO seems to provide a marginal improvement; so I have left it there. It also provides another layer of surge protection.

update; just bought marigo, hope its all they say it is,any comments would be very nice, I have learned alot from you gear heads, please help,thank you sooo much,mac

Im thinking about buying a used marigo appariton line conditioner reference series 2, anybody have one, would really like to know if it works,it is a parallel line conditioner, no outlets on the back, you just plug into the wall and it works.please help

Tbg - thanks for your insights into combining different technologies. Besides not liking the Equi=Tech plugged into the Sound Application, may I ask what you liked or didn't likeabout the Equi=Tech plugged directly into the wall?

My result are similar to Tbg. I recently tried a RSA and
a Audience adaptResponse. They both sound better on their own.

At one time I had the Equi=Tech Q1.5, the Walker Velocitor, the Reimyo filter, the Sound Application Line Stage, and the Loricraft power supply. I tried many different combinations. Since the Walker and the Reimyo both are Quantum based and the Loricraft and Equi=Tech both balanced, I thought that using one after the other would sound poorly. Any combination of the Velocitor and the Reimyo was worse than each by itself.

The Loricraft is current limited , but plugged into the ET did not sound bad. Not great either.

The Equi=Tech did not like being plugged into the Sound Application.

I think there can be many unfortunate interactions between these various technologies, and it can be very frustrating to try all of them. With the exception of the Loricraft which I use on my Shindo Labs/ Garrard 301 tt, I have sold all of the other filters, finding the IsoClean system with isolation transformers and a filtering box to be superior although expensive.

yes I do daisy chain them with the exception of the Symphony Pro. For the reduction of EMI/RFI, I think the Symphony pro is the way to go.

Sundance45, you have lots of line conditioning gear - do you daisy chain them?

My theory is that filter-types lend themselves to daisy chaining benefits whereas power regeneration units (e.g. Equi=Tech, PS Audio) may not benefit from adding filter-type units because they have digital outlets to reduce EMI/RFI which is the same functionality that the filter-types provide . . . Just a theory. Any advice?

Thanks for your replies folks.

Hi, I have an Exact Power EP-15 & SP-15, Two Hydra 8s, Marigo Apparition and a Quantum Symphony One in the same system. They all do different things with the end result natural sounding.

The Equitech line conditioners utilize a balanced transformer to clean up the power. This is different technology from the Richard Gray or Environmental Potential products which can be and are recommended to be daisy chained.