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AC Conditioners: Must Have Tweak or More Voodo

As the old school, 2 channel, sentimental dinosaur that I am, power conditioners are very newfangled devices to me and are filed in the same section of my brain as home theatre receivers. However, I have just moved into an apartment in an old townhouse where half the plugs don't even seem to work and even the ones that do requie "cheater" plugs. As I continue to build a system around a Levinson 23.5, ARC SP-11 MK II, Michell turntable and Sony SCD-1, I am wondering if some of these devices would erase my worries about old wiring in the house. Can someone please educate me on what I should do? Dealers seem to tell me that the power amp should go into the wall or a chang lightspeed thingy and that PS Audio 300 would be good for all the source components but I'm clueless. Would these things really mitigate the need to rewire or seek a dedicated line? Thank you.
cwlondon
sean
6,231 posts
 
My personal opinion is that most of these "tweaks" such as a good power line conditioner, dedicated lines, well designed power cords, etc... are all additive things. As such, one will not replace the other, etc...

Given your situation, i would first check into dedicated lines as what you have sounds far less than optimum. If half the outlets in the joint don't work, it sounds like you have a LOT of connections "somewhere" that are less than optimum. If you plan on staying for a reasonably long amount of time, it would be worth the little bit of money that you could have this done for.

Given that scenario, why chance building a multi-thousand dollar system on a less than solid foundation ? After all, the breaker box / fuse box and is where all of the energy to reproduce the music comes from. If it is not "healthy" to start with back to that point, all you will be doing is trying to nurse a "sick" situation back to health. You would be doing this by adding "tweaks" that can only band aid but NOT repair what is already wrong. Once that is done, you could concentrate on the next step, etc...

You might also want to check into the archives, as there are more than a few threads that have gone pretty far in detail on this very subject. Sean
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g_m_c
443 posts
 
the power conditioners are valuable for controling voltage spikes that can damage equipment. grounded units can also help with lightning strikes that can fry your equipment. they will not help though, unless they are grounded. you may need to find a ground.
alexanderj
139 posts
 
Time for your landlord to invest in an electrician to replace/repair the non-working outlets. Outlets that make poor connections are very dangerous, in higher current situations they will overheat and start a fire. They also will drop the available voltage to your components.

Your local housing inspector can also help if your landlord needs additional motivation. I'd also make sure the smoke detectors were functional.
jameswei
883 posts
 
Sounds like your wiring could be dangerously out of code. I'd get it fixed before even thinking about a power conditioner. After that, I suggest getting a power conditioner that offers spike protection, component isolation (from each other), and power line noise suppression. There are lots of good ones to choose from. Check out the "Power strips" thread that was started on 2/5/02. Good luck.
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