Power conditioner wire gauge? Serious issue

Elgar still makes those. I've not tried them to see how they compare to their older power conditioners. So I can speak to how well they will work, but I suspect they will work just fine. The ones I've seen allow you more output voltages and also variable line frequency.

Oops Dept.: the word 'can' as in 'So I can speak' was supposed to be 'can't'. Sorry about that.

is this Elgar thing you mention also called an AC power supply?

@thespeakerdude Elgar still makes those. I've not tried them to see how they compare to their older power conditioners. So I can speak to how well they will work, but I suspect they will work just fine. The ones I've seen allow you more output voltages and also variable line frequency.

Since the action of conditioning the power must consume some of it, the conditioners of which you speak presumably have power supplies of their own to make good the loss.

@clearthinker

They do.

The PS Audio, if I understand correctly, employs a low distortion oscillator that gets amplified by the power amp inside and then drives a power transformer. To keep the power draw of the device down they are probably using a control transformer for this task.

In the Elgar, there is also a low distortion 60Hz oscillator. It is synchronously locked to the AC line. The AC power goes through an enormous isolation transformer. This transformer has a set of windings for the power supply of the built-in power amp. The main output of the transformer is compared to the oscillator. A difference voltage is thus created and amplified by the power amp. The output of the power amp is applied to a feedback winding on the transformer. In this way the output of the unit is kept low distortion (no harmonics, especially the 5th which is the most problematic). The output voltage of the power amplifier is also used to 'buck' the isolation transformer, providing boost or decrease as needed. In this way its also able to regulate the line voltage without current limiting. Pretty cool!

In both cases the active circuitry draws power of its own. Care is taken to minimize the power draw; regardlesst does not rob voltage from the output in either case.

We used a PSAudio 20Amp unit at AXPONA last year. The hotel line voltage got down to 110V or less at times but our voltage in our room was always at exactly 120V.

All power conditioners steal power.

@clearthinker

This isn't entirely correct. A good power conditioner will do nothing of the sort.

Many 'conditioners' are passive devices and so probably do limit current (and so have a voltage drop) but if the conditioner is an actual bona fide conditioner, it will not only clean up the power but it will also insure that the output voltage does not sag and current (up the limit of the conditioner) will not be limited.

There are very few examples of actual power conditioners in high end audio. PS Audio probably makes one of the better ones out there.

There is a company called Elgar that made real power conditioners a long time ago (they got out of that market in the early 1980s). Their conditioners had guaranteed distortion specs and regulated the AC line voltage. They made some that could handle 28 Amps! This means your entire room could have clean power. If you run across an Elgar it will likely need refurbishment- new filter capacitors in its power supplies and so on. They are built for 24/7 service and use a sophisticated system to insure that the AC they produce is clean with no voltage drop.