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I'm convinced: my Power Conditioner was ruining...

I'm convinced: my Power Conditioner was ruining my system's acoustics.

I heard it all, but ignored it. I'm in a brown/black out prone area so I've been over cautious using an APC 1500VA powering a Monster HTS 5100 and distributing to my system from there.

Yesterday I was moving things around and I ran the system direct to the APC. F'n AMAZING improvement!!

Within an hour I had it on Craigslist and today it went out the door and I ordered out for Chinese on the new owner.

But for the last 6 hours I've been reading reviews for PS Audio, Richard Gray, Running Springs, etc. Am I nutts? Should I rely on the clean music I'm getting? Why do I feel a conditioner will help when clearly the HTS didn't?

In part I feel it's because I don't understand power enough; I know the APC produces a stepped sine wave. I know that's not good for my use, but does it produce that only when acting as a backup? Short of a regenerator would anything eliminate the square sine?

If you had $600 to spend and you were in my position would you spend it on music and chinese (perhaps Indian next time) or a replacement conditioner?

Thanks All.
kphinney
gbart
290 posts
 
"I am especially dubious of putting something in the line between the wall and your amp - in fact I am tempted to hard-wire my amp at home directly to the AC supply line in the wall!"

Don't! Its a code violation. You need to be able to disconnect the amp from the AC line.
timztunz's avatar
timztunz
78 posts
 
"Install 20 amp dedicated outlets with 10 gauge Romex and audio-specific quality receptacles and call it a day."

That will certainly help clean up the power on the lines IN your house, but it does nothing to improve the quality of the power coming TO your house. IMHO, I would edit your statement to say, "Install 20 amp dedicated outlets with 10 gauge Romex and audio-specific quality receptacles and get yourself a Pure Power One 5.0 from Silver Circle Audio and THEN you can call it a day."
kphinney OP
24 posts
 
I agree that a dedicated line may be a good idea -- I have one with 10 guage run straight to a 20amp fuse, but as Timztunz points out it's only as good as the power coming into the house -*to and extent*.

So what of the breaker? It's only a trip switch. It has no internal shielding and for $10 I wouldn't expect it to. Your breaker box has one large mains coming in and (in most cases) two large copper bars running from the mains to the breakers. Any line noise in the house is carried along the A/C current to the breaker box and then redistributed throughout the rest of the house. It's not unidirectional.
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