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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 2 responses by helomech

helomech
1,525 posts
 
Most audio components are completely immuned to dirty mains power. There are some exceptions (some Rogue Audio stuff for example), but otherwise, the most common problem is humming/buzzing toroidal transformers from DC offset. This is something your power provider can check for with a special meter. They should do that free of charge if you have a legitimate concern. 

https://youtu.be/OL23xkLfPTU

If dirty mains is an issue, it’s best to just stick with the bigger name brands that have competent engineering chops. 
helomech
1,525 posts
 

 I wonder if my amplifier would sound better without those SMPS’s on the same circuit. I also wonder if they interfere with each other.

Not if your amplifier is competently designed.

Save your money. Power regenerators do absolutely nothing for sound quality unless your components are very poorly designed. You’ll be better off upgrading your system components. When you own good gear you’ll find that distortion on your grid has absolutely no bearing on sound quality. Companies like PS Audio thrive off hawking such garbage because they’ve realized most audiophiles don’t have any clue how their gear works. 
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