Power Conditioners Recommendations

Dedicated lines do nothing to cleanse the dirty AC coming in from the street which is the biggest distortion pertaining to AC. Everybody has dirty AC (some worse than others) and it does not matter how close or far you are from a power station.

Dedicated lines serve two purposes:

1. Minimize any interior AC noise coming from appliances and dimmer switches.

2. Help ensure that there's enough juice for dynamic/complex passages for power hungry amps.

Dedicated lines also do not cure the bi-directional digital noise generated from digital source components (cdp, dac, class D amps, computer, etc). Even with dedicated lines the digital noise will go out from the component into the wall, all the way back to the service panel, and then out to every other circuit/line, and into your other components.

If you do not have a high-current drawing amplifier you can easily forgo dedicated lines all-together provided you have proper line conditioners in place and perhaps not be lacking in anything.

Be sure that the line conditioners you select have bi-directional filtering capabilities otherwise your digital components will continue to induce sonic harm into your other components (dedicated lines or not).

-IMO

Learsfool, I made mention in my post above about the use of 'proper' line conditioning. If I ever post about line conditioners I always preface it with the word 'proper' because there probably is no other area within the industry where there are so many improper (inferior) products as in line conditioners.

Not only do improper line conditioners not improve the sonics (their sole purpose for being) by cleansing and conditioning the AC, they most always seem to induce their own sonic harm by inducing their own noise and/or suppressing certain offending frequencies (including the music). The indifferent line conditioners are those that do nothing whatsoever.

Based on the line conditioner brands you've mentioned, I cannot see where you have yet to list any 'proper' line conditioners among those you've auditioned.

But don't give up. There's a few out there.

-IMO

Learsfool, good point. There is always the used market.

For example the Foundation Research LC-1 and LC-2 line conditioners are older models and still should compete with some of the very best line conditioners available today and used you can find them around the $300 - $500 price range. (There's none on Audiogon at this moment.)

I'm sure there are others as well such as Audio Magic.

But more important, if proper line conditioning is not in your budget at this time don't waste your money on something that often times sounds worse than nothing at all.

It's not like any line conditioning is better than no line conditioning at all because that simply is not true. I've actually auditioned systems where after 10 - 20 minutes I couldn't take the fatigue any more and suggested we remove the line conditioners entirely from the system and the system sounded far better and less fatiguing. And we're talking very popular name brands in high-end audio.

It's these very units that give proper line conditioning a bad rap and that's why even after all these years few systems have any kind of serious line conditioning.

Line conditioners are what I consider somewhat of a foundational requirement to a system. In other words, if you get this part of the system right (or at least better) it has the potential to dramatically improve every electrical component in the system. Not just one. So it's actually like upgrading every component and hearing a bit more of every component's full potential.

I suggest patience and research, stay away from the most popular brands, and look for used unit prices.

Perhaps instead of budgeting for your next amp or speaker upgrade, you might consider budgeting for proper line conditioning instead. I can all but guarantee that you'll get far more listening pleasure.

-IMO