I had the reference Furman conditioner and switched it to the Puritan PSM 156. It was more effective in AC line noise reduction and I didn't have to listen to the faint transformer hum. Isotek is another good company that are audio club uses but depending on the configuration they can get expensive. This was purchased before the Puritans were available. A famous speaker designer in our club also uses the Puritan and he is very picky.
WHICH POWER CONDITIONER IS BETTER PASSIVE OR ACTIVE WITH ISOLATION TRANSFORMERS
Looking to purchase a Power Conditioner to reduce the noise floor in my system as well as to protect my system from electric spikes. The two types of conditioners seem to be as follows:
- Passive conditioners such as an Audience AR-12 T4 which claims that passive conditioning with the use of chips is the way to go because their filtering is better accomplished without the use of isolation transformers. The proponents of passive seem to claim that the use of isolation transformers adds noise to the components in the chain.
- Active or non passive-An example would be the Niagra 3000, 5000 &7000 by Audioquest which all use Isolation transformers to accomplish the filtering. Most of the conditioners I see advertised seem to accomplish filtering with the use of isolation transformers.
- My question is what type is better and why? Any recommendations would be appreciated. My budget is $4000-$5000.00, would consider used, a/k/a pre-owned.
- Thank you for your input.