Tweakers' Asylum

Posted by Al Sekela (A) on October 09, 2005 at 13:54:06

In Reply to: Newbie power filtration/supply question posted by michmartin on October 9, 2005 at 10:45:45:

Your basic AC supply is a convenience circuit and is marginal for what you are trying to do. Spending more than $20 on fancy power strips is a waste of money at this point.

Depending on how easy it is to get from your audio system to your circuit breaker panel, your best bet may be to hire an electrician to install multiple dedicated circuits. Using separate circuits provides very good isolation between the power supplies of the power amp, the preamp, the digital source, etc. The fancy conditioners try to do this with passive filters, with less success and possible detriments to the equipment performance.

With a new house, your panel should be in good shape and the ground robust. If you live outside town, I strongly suggest you look into whole-house surge protection as well. I once lived in Colorado Springs, and the house we lived in was struck by lightning shortly after we left. It is not in a particularly exposed area.