Do i need AC conditioner w/dedicated AC lines?

My 2 cents worth
At my old house I had my amp plugged into wall with dedicated line and i had my pre/source plugged into line conditioner also on dedicated line and if i plugged the amp into line conditioner there was minimal differences but noticeable.Now at our new house same dedicated lines i had this "glare" issue with my setup,the bass was hollow sounding,the highs were hard etc.I plug the amp into the line conditioner and probably 70% of my problem fixed,tried a shunyata hydra and 100% of my problem fixed and further improvements.So I guess its a matter of the quality of power you are getting from the pole and trying a line conditioner I think would be the only way to tell if you need one or not.

Stehno is absolutely correct in his description of how AC works, but before investing in much of anything else, i would try using some type of parallel line filters at each of the outlets that feed the amps. This should shunt most of the high frequency noise that is riding on the AC line that might get past the toroidal transformer in the JC-1's themselves. It will also do this without playing any type of games with current limiting. This is a very important factor when dealing with high powered high bias amps. You also won't have to deal with any extra connections between the amp & AC system, so the installation remains just as clean as it is now. It also keeps costs down by not requiring yet even more "fancy" power cords to feed the AC filters themselves. As such, it would be the most cost effective way to see if there would be any benefits to increased power line conditioning in your specific installation.

Having said that, anything that you can buy or put into another chassis i.e. a power line filter, can be put into the existing circuitry of an amp. The only reason that this would not be possible would be limitations in physical space. Sean
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PS... When installing parallel line filters, the effects should be relatively immediate. Having said that, it might take you a day or two to really notice their subtle but real effects on the system. As discussed in another recent thread, don't mistake high frequency artifacts ( ringing ) as "increased detail". Things might not sound quite as open or airy due to the reduction in high frequency artifacts and treble smear, but your sense of inner resolution and micro-detail will improve due to the reduction within the noise floor. The mild change in tonal balance may take a bit to get used to, but you would be stepping in the right direction.

I have 3 dedicated lines with newly installed dedicated grounds. Since the dedicated grounds I now prefer my monoblock amps and preamp plugged directly into the wall, segregated from my digital setup which remains on the conditioner. Segregating the digital from the rest of the system was a major improvement as was the dedicated grounds.
Prior to the dedicated grounds I preferred everything on the conditioner. My take is that for dedicated lines to sound their best you must also segregate the grounds from the main house ground as feedback from rest of house contaminates through grounds. Dedicated grounds may be hazardous so proceed with caution. I still want to experiment with a dedicated condtioner for the amps and preamp.

Cool. Thanks guys, for all the great, in depth responses!

I was thinking along the lines of a Shunyata "Hydra", or something similar that will not rob me of any current.

I'll have to give one a try & post my results.

Denf

The answer is YES! You need to filter out the dirty AC even with dedicated lines. There are several ways to do it. See the thread I posted a while back and Sean gave a web site address that talks about building a filter (it really works) and then he goes into more about grounding and filtering, etc.

Happy Listening

AC Info