Power conditioner wire gauge? Serious issue

@clearthinker

All power conditioners steal power.

Can you explain this?

Are you suggesting that power conditioners can degrade a specification - such as "power factor" ? Therefore, limiting power delivery to audio components?

Power conditioners can use quite a bit of power on their own just to function. Complex designs, large transformers and MOVs (Metal Oxide Varistor, old and cheap tech). Some on the market can use 20 watts plus. That’s enough for a stand-alone CD player.

The power conditioner I own only requires 1 Watt to do its job. Proprietary USA-made design. Over the years, I have found the following to be true:

Power conditioners that require a lot of electricity to work behave more like amplifiers, rather than power filters. Dynamics and overall system performance can be harmed by this.

It's not about the ability to allow the product to function.

It's about impedance along the way and no one seems to understand that.

@mastering92

Thank you.  You have answered your own question.  As you say, power conditioners need power to function and this power has to come from the wall, therefore reducing the power that is passed on to the audio power amplifiers.  Also as you say, the amount of power consumed by the conditioner will vary according to its design.  All I am saying is that the net power leaving the conditioner needs to be comfortably sufficient to power the amplifier.

We are in agreement.

@clearthinker 

Right on! Thanks for your response.

😀

All power conditioners steal power.

@clearthinker

This isn't entirely correct. A good power conditioner will do nothing of the sort.

Many 'conditioners' are passive devices and so probably do limit current (and so have a voltage drop) but if the conditioner is an actual bona fide conditioner, it will not only clean up the power but it will also insure that the output voltage does not sag and current (up the limit of the conditioner) will not be limited.

There are very few examples of actual power conditioners in high end audio. PS Audio probably makes one of the better ones out there.

There is a company called Elgar that made real power conditioners a long time ago (they got out of that market in the early 1980s). Their conditioners had guaranteed distortion specs and regulated the AC line voltage. They made some that could handle 28 Amps! This means your entire room could have clean power. If you run across an Elgar it will likely need refurbishment- new filter capacitors in its power supplies and so on. They are built for 24/7 service and use a sophisticated system to insure that the AC they produce is clean with no voltage drop.