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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
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.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
Many conditioners use the ground on a 3 way plug to get rid of the noise from the digital components. I agree with others that you would need to ground the cheater plug to get the best results.
danner
202 posts
 
Fixing the wiring first sounds like good advise. -- As to AC accessories, my guess is they all have their own character. As an example, I've tried the PS Audio P300, Ultimate Outlet, and Juice Bar (and still own and use all three) with a single brand of upgrade power cord (Silver Audio Power Burst). The Power Burst gave tighter bass and more clear mids. The Ultimate Outlet improved the blackness around notes with a 'mellow' presentation, the P300 also improved blackness but resulted in a very refined high end. Since I feel most systems overemphasize the high end, I nearly discarded it, but upon further listening concluded it did not exaggerate but rather 'revealed' the high end (just an impression without factual basis). I'm using the UO in a dedicated headphone setup and the P300 in my main system (but I've read that you can use them together). The P300 didn't have enough outlets, so I used a relatively inexpensive power strip that allowed use of your own power cord. After having cords loosen in this strip I bought the $200 Juice Bar on a 30 day trial. No contest, immediate improvement. -- I neither have the time nor money to compare all or even many of the different power cords, conditioners, outlets, etc but from this limited experience believe that for a given system they will all have an impact in different ways in much the same way that different interconnects and speaker cables give different results. Good luck.
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