Power/Line conditioner recommendations

Boy what a loaded series of questions.  Unfortunately, like all things audio, it comes down to the listener's preferences and requirements. Let me ask you. What are your reqirements for a power conditioner?  Are they:

Voltage regulation
EMI/RFI suppression
Transient voltage protection
Balanced power
Power regeneration
Great sound

Power conditioners for audio offer hopefully at least one or more of the above.  Preferably without negative colorations or limitations.  The best approach is to do some of your own research (TAS is a great resource), make a short list of power conditioners based on your budget and requirements, audition them in your own system then decide from there which one best mates with your sytem and tastes.  Good hunting!

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 Like many audio items, I've not seen any objective data showing improvements in frequency response when using power conditioners compared to not using them.  I'm not familiar with tube amps, but any solid state device will contain its own built-in power conditioner (the power supply).  The output of the power supply will be strongly de-coupled from the input, so fluctuations in the line will have a miniscule impact on the output of the power supply.  As a mechanical engineer, power supply electronics are a bit out of my area of expertise, but I am somewhat skeptical of the need for the conditioning aspect of a separate device.
However, many people believe strongly they can hear a difference, and many power conditioners also perform surge protection as well as voltage regulation or UPS duties, both of which have definite advantages depending on the state of your power grid.  It therefore makes sense to be to buy a quality device that will do the functions you require, and maybe you can find a place that will let you audition a unit so you can determine whether you are able to hear a difference.
As far as brands go, I'm more value oriented, so the list below may be on the cheap side for some:
Panamax makes several in practically every price range.  I like the M8-HTpro, which is a floor type surge protector, with some conditioning.  It is relatively inexpensive @ $150 or so. They also have boxed units that would mount with amps, transports, etc, with prices ranging from $200-$1000 or more.  Panamax owns Furman which makes some very high end units as well.  Panamax has a $5,000,000 warranty on connected equipment, which seems to be nice peace of mind.
APC has the HT-15 (or something like that), which was on sale in the silver color for ~$150.  It has a large transformer and in addition to line conditioning, it has surge protection and Voltage Regulation (basically this means that if you have a voltage fluctuation on the incoming line, the internal transformer will attempt to keep the output voltage constant - this requires additional current, and will only work within a small band of fluctuation, but for transients it might work quite well).  APC traditionally served the IT industry with uniterruptible power supplies, and had a good reputation there, but I don't know how that carried over to their audio line.  Still, it has many features at a great price, if you can still find it on sale. I think they have a $500,000 insurance.
PS Audio had a nice floor unit, but it was $500.  All the features of some of the Panamax rack type designs, but in the floor type layout.  One of the AVG related mags had a review of them a while ago.  They also have connected equipment insurance, maybe $3,000,000.  Can't remember exactly.
Anyhow, lots of info...I'm currently leaning towards Panamax because they have a good insurance policy, a decent reputation, a relatively low price on the floor version, and are a located relatively near my area.  Still haven't decided for sure though.  I'll be interested in the upcoming review referenced above.

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OR: you might choose an Audience aR2p-T or 6-T unit, which are the Teflon versions of the same non-Teflon units. the latest offering is a legitimtate use of the word "iincredible." There's a vivaciousness that's altogether closer to the live experience than to the electromechanical experince.
It's bound to BE the most popular as it gets more coverage.
What I would change is the ability to place the smaller aR2p-T unit on the floor instead of plugging it directly into the wall. The outlets are NOT at a good angle for inserting power cords, unless you like cords that  are hanging DOWN from the unit and therefore don't have the best connection to the unit simply by virtue of Gravity.
I am quite, quite, quite, quite, quite and utterly besmirched by the Audience. This is beyond being just a line conditioner, and could be said to inahbit the Realm of  It's-Not-Memorex-It's Live performers. To pay for the smallest  unit (around $1600) is to get the sound of the bigger one at a fraction of the $8000. cost. Just be prepared to get a separate one for digital and then one  with a high quality power bar and then plug everything in to THAT. You'll have just upgraded your system equivalent to a $30K more expensive system -- without spending 30K. In fact, you could just plug the Audience in and take the next 6 months coming out of the catatonic shock you'll be in once you hear the sound of your system. We can hardly wait for it to break in completely.
The ideal High End Line Conditioner price is $1700.00. Not that close to 2K to seem ultra expensive (2k is, you know [some don't]), and  a reasonable cost for what it is supposed to do. I bougfht my Tice  Power Block (both units tied together) by 1990, and have not plugged into the wall since then. The Tice Units were right around 2k. I didn't mind at the time  I bought them: they were affordable within my budget.  However, that was then.  These day, the Audience aR2p-T is  the line conditoner to beat. Hell, it's the component to beat. And it will be a  spectacular upgrade for any system. ANY. Even HP's, remember???

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PS Audio's Duet ($199) and Quintet ($349) are great power conditioners (without the usual side effects!) and are IMHO THE best buy in power conditioners.

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Over time, I've reviewed a lot of power conditioners and the experience left me with several conclusions:

1) Some--actually far too many--power conditioning products are guilty of the "two steps forward, three steps backward" syndrome. In other words, they fix some problems while causing others. Not good.

2) Some conditioners appear to be based on theories or claims that live somewhere on the borderline between fairy tale literature and outright science fiction. They often change the system's sound in peculiar ways without actually making a net improvement. Not good.

3) Some conditioners appear soundly designed and work quite well with components that do not draw much power, but are not suitable for use with large power amps or integrated amps. These, in my mind, are legitimately beneficial offerings provided you respect their output limitations.

4) A few conditioners appear soundly designed and work well with almost anything--even big power amps. 

What one wants, I think, is a conditioner that first and foremost has taken the electronic equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm... (actually, I did a bit of research and discovered that that phrase isn't really part of either the modern or classical Hippocratic Oath, but you get the general idea).

__________

With these observations in mind, let me say that three of the best conditioners I've tried thus far all come from PS Audio: the Power Plant Premier, the Quintet, and the Duet.

The Power Plant Premier (which is not just a power conditioner but actually a power regenerator) comes as close as anything I've heard to being a complete do-all, works-everywhere solution. It's only significant caveat, as near as I can tell, is a 1500-watt output limit, which won't be enough for some really large power and/or integrated amps. Otherwise, the Power Plant Premier does it all: voltage regulation, AC waveform distortion reduction, noise filtering, surge suppression, highly effective isolation between grouped pairs of outlets, start-up sequencing options, and some other technical benefits I can't recall off the top of my mind.

Sonic benefits: quieter and less "hashy" backgrounds, generally lowers the system noise floor, and achieves these results with no quashing of dynamics or suppression of low-level textural or transient details. Subjectively, the Premier enables components to more effectively render low-level sonic information for improved imaging and soundstaging, while also helping dynamic contrasts to stand out in sharper, clearer relief. And, oh-by-the-way, did I mention the Premier also seems to have a beneficial effect on turntables that use synchronous motors? (I speculate that this is partly attributable to the fact that the Premier precisely regulates the amplitude and shape of AC waveforms.). 

For applications where you need "ceiling unlimited" power output, the Quintet (5 x isolated banks of 2 outlets) or Duet (2 x isolated banks of 2 outlets) make very good solutions. They aren't quite as effective as the Power Plant Premier in an absolute sense, but they cost less and perform beautifully with whopper amps.

Note: In the Playback listening room, I use a pair of Duets fed from separate wall circuits, plus a Power Plant Premier. We have our big reference Anthem Statement P5 multichannel amp (which is designed to be fed from two separate AC lines) served by one AC cord from each of the two Duets. Then, all other system components are plugged into the Power Plant Premier. Together, these conditioners make for a stable reviewing platform that lets us hear what components under test can really do.

In my home system, used for most of the TAS reviews I write, I use PS Audio Soloist in-wall power conditioners, one of which feeds a Power Plant Premier. Everything in my home system (except my ultra-beefy 500 Wpc Musical Fidelity kW500 hybrid integrated amp) is plugged into the Premier. 

So far, results have been very, very good, though I'm of course open to other solutions that might offer even better performance in the future (after all, the search for continuous performance improvements is part of the fun of this game, no?).

Best,

Chris Martens

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AC power conditioners vary from simple power strips to the most sophisticated active and passive units.  Prices vary accordingly, topping out at $5-6,000 and up.  How many models are out there--100?  200?  The ratio of a unit's "doing good" to "doing harm" by all reports is quite variable.  Until recently, compression of dynamics was a big issue.  But major advances have been made in the past couple of years, to the point where the best units do lots of good and very little harm, and even the cheaper ones can be quite good.  Correspondingly, most of the major players have new units out.  HP described the effect of the Audience aR12-T (and aR6-T) in TAS 186, saying they "raised the performance standard...so dramatically as to redefine the art."  RH reviewed the Running Springs Audio Dimitri in TAS 193, concluding that it is "world-class [but ] takes this performance to another level" and is simply an "essential component."  There's no longer any doubt as to the benefit of a "good" power conditioner--it is an essential step toward the "absolute sound," and it makes the music substantially more lifelike and enjoyable to listen to.  Strips away haze, increases clarity, richness, and presence, inflates images and soundstage.  In short, realism.  Nobody knew the extent of grunge carried in AC lines...until somebody figured out how to get rid of it.  So for every one of us, it comes down to:  (1) money; (2) desire; and (3) finding the right product.  If you care, and have the means, you have to go for it or suffer accordingly, knowingly or not.  This raises an interesting situation.  There's a long-running discussion as to how to allocate an audio budget among components--source, amp, speakers, accessories.  But the game has changed, if you're serious about it.  It's been apparent for some time that cabling must be fully considered a component of the budget--including AC cords.  Now we find that power conditioning likewise must be fully considered a component of the budget.  I believe cabling should approach the average component cost among source, amp, speakers.  For some, that will run well into five figures; for others, merely hundreds or thousands.  The power conditioner, too, should approach average component cost, up to that upper end of $5-6,000 or so.  If you're into five-figure components, you get a break, because $5-6,000 will do the job, unless you need two of them.  Of course, most of us build our systems over time...endlessly.  Please recognize that I'm generalizing.  And I'm not posing as an "expert."  But I've been through Richard Grey, PS Audio, Shunyata, and Walker, and have ended up, happily, with the aR6-T.  When you hear it, you know it.  So go hear it!  But know that break-in is real, and takes a long time.  Good listening!

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I don't know.
 
I recently auditioned a couple of power conditioners, on the advice of my dealer.  I originally wasn't planning to follow my dealer's recommendation, the Transparent PIR, because the only reviews I could find sounded too much like promotions, and I couldn't find any reviews on more trusted sites, particularly TAS, Stereophile or techradar.   These three all had good things to say about the PS Audio Power Plant Premier, though, which also happened to be on sale at promotional prices, and was significantly cheaper than the Transparent.  So I borrowed the PS Audio from another dealer, and spent a night listening with it and without it, and it seemed to be okay.  It didn't seem to be all that well made, though.
 
I ran this by my dealer, and she said she didn't recommend it, that they had tried the PS Audio in the store with my amp, a Boulder 865, and found that it affected the soundstage; it made the sound stage much smaller.  She suggested I might want to hear this by putting the gear back into the wall and see the sound stage get larger.
 
I talked again with the PS Audio dealer, and asked about upgrade or trade in possibilities for the PS Audio in the future, and he replied that there weren't any.  He also said that PS Audio was not an easy company to deal with, that they had a couple of hits on their hand, particularly with the Wavelength, they were selling all they could produce, and they didn't seem that concerned with customer service.  I also rechecked the price including the recommended PS Audio Soloist in-wall power conditioner and the inevitable recommended upgrade cable, and this came close to the cost of the Transparent.
 
My regular dealer, in contrast, offered 100 percent trade-in on new releases by Transparent (anticipated in the summer), and also towards other equipment, if I so chose.  The upshot is that I took her Transparent Power Isolator 8, with the option of returning or trading in later.  It also seems okay.  It does look more solidly made than the PS Audio. 
 
I had lunch with an electrical engineer the other day, who was quite amused that I had bought a power conditioner, and explained in detail why it wouldn't have any affect on the sound, that the first thing that the amp does is fix up the signal coming in. 
 
As I said, I don't know.  Keep it?  Return it?  At the moment I'm inclined to keep it.  But the advice I've gotten in another forum is, every dollar I'm prepared to spend on power conditioners, I should spend it first on room accoustics, that the return is higher.
 
-- Daniel
 
 

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 Dear Mr Martens,
     Have you had any experience with the Bermester 948 Power Conditioner?
     Art Ross

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