Power Conditioner and Surge Protector

I would personally avoid any of these as more often than not they can be detrimental to the sound. in particular dynamics can be compressed. I am however talking of more high end models which can be well engineered in the power supply department in the first place. Far better in my opinion to get a very good power cord, or a good jitter buster between dac and transport (monarchy DIP), or a high quality passive transformer isolator after a dac or preamplifier e.g the sound enhancer by vintage audio lab. All these refine the sound in a way I expect you would like the conditioner to work. Conditioners can also be a hit and miss proposition even for cheaper units with less than ideal power supplies.

Dear All,

I believe the question is 'worth spending the money on'. Some of the products mentioned cost a small fortune. I certainly have never tried such high end conditioners before and fore the price they ought to work bloody well. But if we are talking about your add ons to a 4-5k system then the cheaper products for a few hundred dollars are often poor and not worth the effort. If I had to use hundreds of pounds to improve the sound of my system, I'd also be looking to upgrade my system to get better engineered products!Having said that in the value for money stakes i second shunyata as they do seem to be one of the better ones. Furthermore a bit of blu-tac under my speakers can totally transform the sound of my system for pennies, as can a $400 super tweeter, or placing a weight on top of my cd player, or using a cd mat, try coiling a copper wire of various thickness's for about 6-7 turns on your speaker and interconnect and mains cable and you will be astonished at the subtle changes that can occur. All of these can lead to a more refined or tonally fulsome sound and the list of tweaks is ENDLESS in the pennies cost bracket. so lets get things into perspective here regarding value/ system cost .