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How To Do You Measure the Quality of Your AC Power?

What is the best way to measure the quality of the AC power feeding your listening room? Is there a device you can plug into an outlet that will give you the voltage, frequency, the total amount of distortion relative to a perfect sine wave, etc.? Furthermore, how would you measure the ability of your AC main to deliver transient currents?
It seems like there may be a scenario where you could measure your power quality to be excellent but somewhere in the line you could have a loose or poorly made wiring connection which under heavy load (such as powerful bass notes) you could run into trouble with power delivery. In this scenario, an AC regenerator would not help you, or would help very little.

Just curious what methods people have come up with to systematically analyze their power and how they use those measurements to drive buying decisions or repair work, if needed.

Edit: My apologies for the title typo.
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Showing 1 response by bob540

bob540
405 posts
 
The responses above vary so much between “the power utility will do nothing so long as you have electric service” to “the power company will really help you with testing and equipment changes to arrive at a high quality of electric service.”   So, it really varies that much from one locale to another, and it is the luck of the draw what assistance you will get?

My experience (not particular to electric service or its affect on sound quality) is that the utility always wants me to have a professional check and repair problems within the home first before the utility will send anyone out.  The technician, having checked a few things, says “I checked the box and your outlets, so if you are still having problems you will need to call the utility . . . Just what are you trying to do? . . . Oh, I don’t know about that. I just verify that you have electric service and you do.”
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