Should Amps be plugged into a power conditioner?


Greetings,

After reading about the amplifier hum, it was mentioned that some knowledgeable people say NOT to plug an amp into a power conditioner. Plug it directly into a wall outlet. Thankfully, I do not have a hum issue, but am curious as to what others say about where to plug your amp into. 

Thank you!

lovehifi22

Ralph, would appreciate your opinion on my situation. My system's power is supplied by an EQUI=TECH 5Kva wall unit running six dedicated lines, two to the front end, four to the amps (Audiopax M100 monoblocks)  and REL Subs. Am able to dedicate each outlet to one amp and one sub. 

Run the front end through the two lines near the rack. In the case of the phono pre the line is filtered again through a BPT 3.5 sig plus in series with the ET wall unit. Do you estiimate this setup to be optimal. The general wall outlets are daisy chained so obviously subject to noise polution.

@atmasphere 

Current limiting starts at the power cord. Any time you have a glorified power strip, like so many so-called 'power conditioners' seen marketed to the high end audio community, the power cord it uses will have a voltage drop.

is a strip acceptable for all but the amp, or are you saying that everything should plug directly into the wall?

@dentdog Anything with a transformer (like an isolation transformer) is subject to the distortion made by the transformer itself. Generally speaking, to avoid excess distortion from the transformer it must not be loaded past 50% of its rated capacity. You'll have to work out the math (Firefox has a security warning on my machine that suggests the Audiopax site doesn't have a proper certificate so I couldn't make out how much current the amps draw) to see how you sit. Obviously a passive power transformer cannot correct for a line Voltage drop and it will pass distortion that is already on the line.

@immatthewj Power cords (and power strips) have a Voltage drop across them (Ohm's Law), which is why power cords and the like have an effect on the sound of the equipment used with them. You really want to keep that to a minimum. The more power the equipment draws the more effect the power cord can have; feedback in the equipment will help it reject AC line Voltage effects. So the efficacy of power cords and such vary from system to system, sometimes by quite a lot.

I use a power strip in my system but the amps are not plugged into it- they run off of AC lines of which they are the sole user. My preamp is pretty heavily regulated so it tends to be immune to power cords and the like and the rest of the system hardly draws any current, so it works pretty well. 

 

The Spectral Audio manual says to plug their amps into the wall.  I don't use any devices to clean or regenerate power for any of my audio equipment.

I plug mcIntosh mono amplifiers into a transparent power isolator. It doesn’t restrict anything and is designed to remove lots of magnetic Radio frequency noisy stuff along the way. It cost around $6000. Also well insulated power cables are kind of important too. Just spend some money and get a nice box that you can plug your gear into and I think you’ll live more happy.

Plus it offers a hydraulic surge protector which is appealing. The purists don’t like surge protectors but I don’t see the problem and my panel has a surge protector but I don’t wanna take a chance and destroy a very expensive amplifier because of some stupid lightning bolt due to a large tree I own or whatever.