[oak3x]

As I continue on building my hi-fi system, I am at the point where I want to begin looking at Power Cords (for my CD Player).

As I visited my local audio dealer, he strongly suggested that I look to add a Power Conditioner first. In particular he mentioned Exact Power 15A. He said that incorporating a Power Conditioner would without a doubt enhance the overall sound of my system.

Just wondering whether others on the forum felt this strongly about Power Conditioners?

 

[tbonner1]

1-Look for power conditioners to give you the final 2-5% in you system AFTER you have configured synergy with the rest of your gear.

2-You will only get the above mentioned improvement if your power is dirty. If you power is clean and house wiring is good you may not receive any audible improvement.

3-One easy way to check what improvements your power conditioner makes is connect it to your cable TV system (antenna and video gear) and compare before and after. Look at the grain of the picture and for artifacts like blurring and ghosts in the picture.

 

[yo2tup2]

depends on how dirty your power is.

the power in my house is pretty bad so it made a significant improvement. it was the last thing i added to my system and i wish i tried it sooner.

 

[HumanMedia]

Just avoid the surge supression variety with any MOVs or Ferrites.

 

[grandenigma1]

I needed one while at school but since then have had no need for one. My home gets a constant 124.6v from the outlets regardless of time of day and year. So as the others have mentioned, it is optional and case dependent.

 

[Dan Millheim]

I am on my second power conditioner and it's nothing special in terms of audiophile standards (Monster HTS3600 MKII). I have some other gear upgrades I am working on and then this will be a priority. I hear an improvement on my headphone rig but the real difference is a line conditioner in my media room. On a big screen it is very noticable in image clarity.

 

[MikoLayer]

I tried a CP1107 off ebay and my experience wasnt nearly as great; either that this model is seriously deficient, or the rest of my gear is not up to the standards.
It did make a subtle but noticeable difference, not necessarily for better. Worse yet, there was some hum when the unit was on. I managed to minimize it by removing the ground prong on the power cord - something I did not have without the conditioner - perhaps my problem resides elsewhere.

 

[Listen2this1]

Huge differece, the thing I added the most that suprised me was when I added a voltage stabilizer. I had no idea that my voltage was changing that much, especially now since the power consumption in the neighborhood has been up. The thing to remember about surge and conditioner is if you have a high current amp the smaller surge protectors are not high current rated. They might be pinching the power off.

Finale thoughts, if you buy good ones you most likely will have them longer than any other piece of equiptment.

 

[tourmaline]

it all depends on how well stabalized your powersection of the amp and your source is! if your amp has a well stabalized powersection, the improvement could be zero or it could even take away details! Some amps that are not that well stabalized or don't have any kind of filtering in your system(every amp has some kind of filtering in there) will benefit more form a powerfilter.

it is up to you to find out by putting in and out the equipment out of the filter and plug it in again, this way you will hear if it gets worse or will improve!

I wouldn't buy an expensive filter like your without testing it out for a week or so in my system!

Audio is not video;

your tele will benefit hugely from filtering; noise will dissapear, better sound tec. but it doesn't mean your amp or cdplayer will like the filtering!

So, in short, yes it could make your soundsystem sound better but it also could make it worse! Only testing it out yourself will make sure!

The exact power 15a is too expensive to experiment with! It's about 1500 euro's/dollars new?!

Invest 1500 dollars/euro's in modding either your amp or your source, it will give you much more improvements! Especially in the caps, powersection etc.

Some very expensive high end amps like mark levinson etc. have allready some kind of linefilter build in; in this case an extra filter would only make it worse!

 

[tourmaline]

it all depends on how well stabalized your powersection of the amp and your source is! if your amp has a well stabalized powersection, the improvement could be zero or it could even take away details! Some amps that are not that well stabalized or don't have any kind of filtering in your system(every amp has some kind of filtering in there) will benefit more form a powerfilter.

it is up to you to find out by putting in and out the equipment out of the filter and plug it in again, this way you will hear if it gets worse or will improve!

I wouldn't buy an expensive filter like your without testing it out for a week or so in my system!

Audio is not video;

your tele will benefit hugely from filtering; noise will dissapear, better sound tec. but it doesn't mean your amp or cdplayer will like the filtering!

So, in short, yes it could make your soundsystem sound better but it also could make it worse! Only testing it out yourself will make sure!

The exact power 15a is too expensive to experiment with! It's about 1500 euro's/dollars new?!

Invest 1500 dollars/euro's in modding either your amp or your source, it will give you much more improvements! Especially in the caps, powersection etc.

Some very expensive high end amps like mark levinson etc. have allready some kind of linefilter build in; in this case an extra filter would only make it worse!

One other option would be to make a dedicated audio group in your mains.
Some say a dedicated group only for audio gives bigger improvement. You could choose your prefered cable to use. Alot of people over here do this and let audioshops make a seperate group only for your audio equipment and report huge improvements. Another thing to considder.

 

[slwiser]

Brickwall surge suppressor will also provide some filtering of the AC for around 200-300 hundred depending on configuration.

 

[OverlordXenu]

Power Conditioner...No. Just get an Untinteruptable Power Supply/Battery Backup so you can protect your equipment from surges and whatnot. It would also let you turn off your gear safely if there is a power outage.

APC is essentially the best company.

 

[chesebert]

Ayre's Charles Hansen (Research Director), once stated that he would rather listen to the Ayre integrated with the Ayre power conditioner than the Ayre separates.

 

[spraggih]

I have the Monster 3500 in my home theater and do not notice a difference than before with a surge protector... BUT I think of conditioners as an insurance policy -- if there were any issues with my sound or video and I did not have a conditioner then I would lament I needed one and thus for me it is a required component for home theater.

Now for my headphone gear I do not have a conditioner and upstairs the electricity is older than in the home theater and I think a conditioner might truly benefit me. But It is not a priority... Unless amazon.com has another Monster 3500 sale for $99. (they sold them for $149 and Monster had a $50 rebate).

 

[mrarroyo]

I have the Monster HTS 3500 MkII and I can not tell a difference. Thank God I only paid about $170 delivered.