Complementary power conditioner for recent Hydra ?

Thanks Jafant. Interesting about the plamsa tv. I have a 4 yr old Sony that's still for me, but I expect Plasma would be my next move. In dealers they seem great right out of the wall. Hard for me to imagine improvement.

I take it, from your post, that you have a Hydra and are looking to improve upon its performance, yes? For what it's worth, I have two Hydras in my system (although not the newest models, as they keep changing them every couple of years and doubling the prices in the process!) I can't offer an opinion as to whether the new Hydras (the Alphas, the Talos and the Triton) are better than the latest offerings from PS Audio or others because I haven't heard them. But what I can say is that my Hydras were, to my ears at least, an order or two magnitude better than their competition at the time I purchased them.

One upgrade option for whichever model you have is to upgrade the power cord--though that can be pricey itself. If you own your own home and haven't already done it, however, the most cost effective tweak I can recommend is to have an electrician install a dedicated line (or lines) for your gear... dedicated meanthing that earch line has only one wall outlet and nothing besides your condition is on that line. It/they should be grounded at least 20 amps. I have two of them--one overrated at 30 amps (for my amplifier, connected via a Hydra 2) and one 20 amp for my source components (via a Hydra 4).

The cost for this will vary, depending on the distance between your outlet and the fuse box, and local electrician fees. But it will still be small compared to buying a really good new conditioner. (My 30 and 20 amp lines cost me $250 and $200 respectively).

If you live in a rental and cannot do this, you could at least still upgrade the wall outlets (and yes, it does make a difference, especially if your gear is highly resolving). With or without a dedicated line, I'd defintely suggest doing the outlets. Prices for "audiophile" grade outlets seem to run anywehere from about $30 to $300. I've tried the PS Audio outlets (at around $45 and the Shunyatas, which are cryio treated) at $75 and settled on the latter.

Hope this helps

I've used Furman balanced power conditioners on dedicated lines with Hydra 2 and 8 plugged into them.

No problems with compatibility.
No sparks flew, no noise issues, but...

I felt the sound was a bit restricted,or over protected.

So the furmans are run in the HT system and the Hydras are on their own in the music system.

Perhaps it was too much of a good thing,or certain wavelengths or frequencies were over filtered and others not.
At first I liked it,then I started switching components in and out of the devices as a system and on their own into just one device at a time.
I heard more clarity this way, but perhaps I am mistaking some of the "air" I hear for line noise that is present now.

Other than the Furmans(IT 15, It 2200)I haven't used any other balanced power conditioners or isolation transformers so my experience is limited.

Thanks Mross and Lacee.
I have upgraded all outlets to 20 amp industrial grade, leviton, I think. Cosidering an upgrade to all Hubbell HBL5362, their top industrial grade and having them all cyro'd to -300 as there's a lot of positive talk about cyro generally, and I recently discovered Ed Meitner has been using it for years.
I have dedicated lines, one digital one amp+pre.
Lacee. did you experiment puttng your other conditioning units before the Furman. I have heard it may be better. Did you compre with equitech?

I never had a chance to compare either of the Furmans directly with an EQuitech,that would be fun.

Inside the Furman is a very large transformer,and the larger one works best on a 20 amp line,so I never thought it wise to plug it into either of the Hydras.Something just doesn't sit well with me going that way, so I never tried it,perhaps I should as I've lived on the edge bypassing fuses for years.

Somethingelse that stops me from going that route is the thought that what the Hydra does to clean up the power maybe all in vain once it passes thru the Furman and becomes balanced.

So I figure, balance the power first and clean up the power that's just been balanced.

So far I've not heard from anyone who has gone the way you inquired about ,Elizabeth tends to feel it should be the other way around so you are not alone in your thinking.

I wish someone from Furman or Equitech or Shunyata could helps us with this dilema.

Regarding outlets,Shunyata already has cryod outlets that you can buy,I have a couple of them and they were better than any of the stock Hubbels I tried,but they were not cyod.They are the same outlets they used in their original Hydra series, maybe they use something different now.

I did spring for the Furutech GTX Gold, receptacle and I am quite impressed with the build quality,and the tight locking fit.
I run them on the dedicted line with my two power amps plugged directly into it.
I suggest you take a look at those before you take the plunge and buy at least one for your most power thirsty component,most likely your amp.They also come with the cryo treatment, and as I mentioned I've not seen a more robust receptacle,which is impressive compared to any stock receptacle.

How could it not sound better?

I would compare it to Cardas Clear and a stock one would be 18 guage zip wire.