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 clearthinker

Dimming lights from an exercise machine???????????

That's serious.  No-one else gets that, although I used to get it when I powered up my old Krell.
Sounds like you've just got bad or old or damaged house wiring.
Get a competent electrician to re-wire the house.  Put the hi-fi on a dedicated circuit back to the company fuse with 20 amp wire.
Then enjoy the music!