affordable power conditioning

Posted by 2ms (A) on December 22, 2002 at 21:51:25

I'm a poor grad student who lives in a very old apartment building which has lots of character but in all likelihood a dubious electrical system. I wouldn't be surprised if the utility systems are older than any of our grandparents (for example, to use elevator you have to pull open wood door and then shut folding metal curtain-like thingy, and heating is courtesy of incredibly loud and leaky steam radiators that keep me up all night).

So, I see that the audio industry is focusing a lot of attention on the issue of problematic ac lately, and I figure that if anyone's got bad ac then it's probably me. The thing is that there's a tremendous amount of bs in our industry, and as I'm a poor grad student who really can't afford to take risks with his money by biting on every one of these kinds of trends, I need anyone who knows the truth about this ac stuff to share it with me.

Is all this stuff about upgrading powercords and buying, like, $400 conditioners from companies that pay audio mags millions of dollars each year to plaster their pages with ads which talk about "stage 4 filtering" really definitely legit? Frankly, to me there are appearances that people only started worrying about this stuff after a couple companies with lots of marketing dough popped up with hughe new lines of products and started screaming at them. I'm hoping that someone who really knows about ac will tell me that power conditioners only have effect under temporary and unusual circumstances such as when neighbor (hallmate) has blowdryer on or something like that. However, if I'd likely benefit from one of these devices very frequently and/or constantly, then please tell me how much you really need to spend to get substantial benefit.

Are the $400 ones with stuff like "stage 3" conditioning really significantly better than the $100 ones with "stage 1 v.2"? Are there conditioners that are better for the money than the Monster devices (dammit if they didn't get someone I actually respect to design the things though -- Marsh -- making it all the more difficult to resist)? Are one's like the AR ($80) with "FNT" technology inferior to comparably priced Monster: http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdetail.asp?sku=AR10V&product_name=Ten Outlet Home Theater Surge Protector ? Basically, what would you get if you were me?

I only have stereo equipment -- a philips sacd1000, B&K preamp + amp, and def tech active sub, so I don't need a billion outlets.

Thanks for taking the time to help me out with this.

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Topic - affordable power conditioning - 2ms 21:51:25 12/22/02 (17)

Re: affordable power conditioning - chris.redmond2@bushinternet.com 15:45:10 12/23/02 (0)

Please satisfy my curiosity - Norm Strong 12:50:45 12/23/02 (0)

This is CHEAP - Jon L 10:26:18 12/23/02 (2)

Re: This is CHEAP - 2ms 20:57:32 12/23/02 (1)

Re: This is CHEAP - Jon L 09:41:28 12/24/02 (0)

Re: affordable power conditioning - Jon Risch 07:34:39 12/23/02 (4)

What about your balanced iso transformer? - chuckd55 23:06:56 12/25/02 (0)

Re: affordable power conditioning - 2ms 21:16:01 12/23/02 (1)

oops - 2ms 21:19:52 12/23/02 (0)

The URL has changed to ... - EmailTim 09:36:46 12/23/02 (0)

Yeah, you probably really DO need one.... - Marc Bratton 06:39:27 12/23/02 (0)

Check these people out ... - EmailTim 01:22:42 12/23/02 (1)

Tim, I think you missed the words "affordable" and "poor grad student" in his original post! nt - Fiddler 02:19:16 12/23/02 (0)

Afraid I Don't Agree On Power Conditioning - Mister Pig 00:37:52 12/23/02 (0)

Afraid I Don't Agree On Power Conditioning - Mister Pig 00:37:30 12/23/02 (1)

I Second that!!!! - TomWh 21:57:17 12/23/02 (0)

Re: affordable power conditioning - some young guy 23:11:24 12/22/02 (0)

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