This so-called "clean power" business is essentially a non-issue for me, however, along with the surge protection, if you have a number of pieces of equipment to turn on and off and you don't have a dedicated circuit, the delays and sequential on/off capabilities featured in the better quality power centers can be quite helpful in this area, along with the ability to prevent the "pop" in speakers that sometimes happens when you turn off power amps.

+1

Monster/Furman/APC/Belkin conditioners primarily employ internal transformers and chokes to assist with provision of "clean power". Electrical current can be "held back" when filtering with transformers & chokes.

Even if you have tried/auditioned conditioners from various manufacturers listed above, you are not straying from the transformer/choke design philosophy.

I've been using one of the Monster power conditioners / surge protectors and haven't had a bit of trouble with power.

On "dirty power," it can be an issue if its really bad.

Father in Law retired to a small town, population about 3000 with really dirty power. In fact the power goes out often enough that he has a generator for his house.

Anyway, he has a 52" Sony rear projection tv and the bulb burned out every 6 months... and they aren't cheap.

Eventually he got a large UPS and has been fine ever since.

Having said that, yeah, most of the time its a non issue. This is a really small town with bad facilities.

snazzed

I'm all for UPSes, doubly so if they have true sine output (the stepped sine approximation can cause some larger transformers in amps and plasma TVs to buzz), triply so if they can provide greater than 15 Amps of current for short periods when the batteries are full.

This may not be so much a matter of dirty power, but one in which the UPS allows the fan to cool the bulb down properly upon loss of power.

That sounds really expensive, but I wouldn't mind it, either.

None of Tripp-Lite's UPSes will provide more than the feed's amperage to their outlets. Actually, they provide less (15A unit provides 12A). At least on the spec sheet. You can push them into over-load for a few seconds before they shut down, so you can get closer to full service.

But the ones we use at work, SU3000RTXL2U, have a 120V, 30A plug (L5-30P), and can provide up to 24A to their outlets. You can get them for about $1100. (Yeah, I've pushed one of them into overload too.)

That looks like a nice unit, and the price isn't as bad as I thought. Does it have true sine output like you were saying?

Yes, it is true sine. Double conversion, AC to DC to charge the batteries, and then the DC to AC with full time sine wave. It's always running from the batteries, so when the AC fails there is absolutely 0 cut-over time.