Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Power Conditioner

Given my investment in the A/V equipment, I guess I need one, right? Any good brand out there that you recommend?

As often, there are high-end and low-end products in every consumer product market. Other than protection against surge, does a nice power conditioner really helps with a/v signal clarity?

Thanks

Actually, unless you live in area with very a poor power supply, a power condiitoner isn't needed, as all equipment has some power condiitoning/surge supression(minor) built in. I haven't seen nor heard any benefit to mine, a Belkin PF60. Panamax makes some very good ones which have better cleaning capabilities according to their specs, but they have less suppression of spikes.

Also in the A1400-8 manual, they recommend not using one for that at least. Something about the possible overage possibly being damaging.

I wish I had an A1400 to have that "worry"

Save the $300 you'd spend on a conditioner and you're that much closer to the A1400!

I raised the same questions you did when considering the decision and ran into a lot of people like Jakewash saying they'd bought it and seen no huge results so I just ended up getting a good surge protector for about $50 from Costco. (though don't get me wrong, a good strong debate usually ensues whenever this question is asked!)

I am considering a power backup for my projector so that it has time to run the fan to cool it down in the event of a power failure, but outside of that I don't plan to spend any more money on power conditioners/surge protectors/etc.

I actually bought mine just for the fun of it. I like to see what the voltage is at any time during the day, there are some interesting results.

I bought the Tripplite at Costco for $99 just to protect the bulb in my TV and the disk in my PVR.

I don't claim to be an audiophile so I guess I can't tell the difference having a nice power conditioner or not.

The area that I live in seldom has power failures but it did happen once that my router got zapped during one severe thunder storm. I guess I will just buy a surge protector to protect my Plasma and receiver.

Thanks for the help.

Sure thing. If you are a member of CostCo, do check there... they have great deals on good surge protectors as well as power backups.

Im new to the audio side of things so I cannot comment on sound quality, but as a person who works with electricity for a living the power conditioning devices are not a good investment as the electronics are built to convert AC into filtered DC therefore eliminating "unclean power". Power supplies have voltage regulators to give you constant power output.

The only way that I would purchase one of these devices would be if I live on a farm with a long single overhead line that only feeds a few customers as these lines are at high risk of Lightning strikes. Even then I would much prefer to put my money into a good UPS(uninteruptible power supply) that are used commonly for PCs. But if lightning strikes close to your house nothing will really protect your gear. Your looking at voltages upwards of ~15 kV minimum.