If you think there is something about the power effecting your audio, rebuild the power supplies in all your gear. Especially the stuff that probably has 78xx/79xx regulators in it, found often powering line stages in DACs/the converter chips themselves.
If you don't have the desire to learn this stuff, or do it, or don't know enough about basic power supply design to be able to point out the flaws in the power supplies used in tons of modern consumer level receivers(among other sections), I'd say you're not qualified to make the decision to spend money on a power conditioner.
If you REALLY think power is an issue(it often is, just not in the way that snake oil manufacturers advertise it is), then go nuts and replace all the supplies in your gear with stuff from power one linear. Making something as good as a good Power one Linear will cost as much and be much more trouble. You can find them on mouser and digikey, and on ebay often. I bought a $9.99 12vdc power supply for my DAC that improved it. Whether or not the sound quality is superior is something I'll not speak on since I didn't do an A/B test, but I know without an A/B test it significantly reduced the noise floor over the wall wart it came with.
The best case scenario is that the power conditioner gives you a perfect 120 VAC, with no extra noise. Most don't even do that much. This is meaningless if the power supply inside your gear does a poor job of converting the 120VAC to a smooth, flat line, ripple free DC of the proper voltage. I'd rather have a typical house A/C and spend my money on sick power supplies to convert that into pristine DC than spend a ton on something to make sure my A/C isn't noisy while completely ignoring the trash power supplies that might be sitting in my gear.
I'm not talking about what goes into NAD, Rotel, old Adcom, old Marantz, or Parasound. They are good companies with quality designs. I'm talking about the power supplies inside most low end(and even some high end) receivers. Even most "pro" audio gear is full of crap compared to what you find inside good hi-fi gear from the aforementioned brands.
If you use separates or integrated gear from a reputable company, you are probably fine. If you use some cheap 5.1 receiver, I would spend money replacing the 5v used to power the digital and the probable +/- 12-15v power supply used to power the line level stages in the device. Having the 12/15 bipolar and the 5v on separate transformers is ideal as the regulator for the 5v rail will have to work less and there'll be less noise leaking between the two. I always try to separate the supply for the digital from the supply for the analog.
Whether or not this sounds crazy is up to you, but two things are for sure:
a) It will cost way less than buying a good 120VAC power conditioner.
b) It will have a more measurable, and in the cases of poorly designed gear; actually AUDIBLE effect on sonic quality than a 120vac power conditioner.
But, most likely, it's best that you not go down the crazy road of modifying and probably for the first few projects ruining everything you own(like I did), when you can just sit back and enjoy the system you have.
<i>**once, before becoming electronics techncician, bought a power conditioner for his hi-fi, and lived to regret it and write this rant</i>
Last edited by Thasp; 04/28/09 01:03 AM.
