power conditioning - source vs amps

I do believe that dedicated circuits will give a nice bang for the buck.
My amps and powered sub-woofer love being plugged directly into dedicated 20 amp circuits. After that, you want to isolate your digital
equipment from your analogue. IMO, this is why many people report hearing improvements after adding filtered power cords to digital equipment. Digital players will pollute your system. If you can provide a dedicated circuit for each of your components, you could get away without a filtered power cord on your digital components -- or AC conditioner [and ISOLATOR] in your system. But IMO, it is more cost effective and effficient to plug your amps and powered sub-woofer into 20 amp dedicated outlets and then plug an AC Conditioner and *ISOLATOR* into another dedicated 20 amp outlet and plug everything else into that. Make sure your AC conditioner also ISOLATES each component plugged into it. This keeps your digital from polluting your system, keeps your components isolated from each other, keeps noise from bad electricity out of your source components, keeps them from transmitting that noise to your amplifiers. I would start with dedicated circuits. Then, I would add something like a BP-2.5. I orginally bought the 3.5 with the idea that I would plug my amps into it. Since I've learned that my amps would rather be plugged directly into dedicated circuits, I probably could have been fine with the 2.5. But -- I still like having the 3.5. It is probably overkill, but then -- most people would say my whole system is overkill, so why split hairs?

Dedicated crappy electric is dedicated crap. Throw a power conditioner (a great one like the Shunyata, the Sound Application, Audio Magic) and you'll be set free.... just some FWIW. warren

My experiences parallel Rsbeck's regarding both amplifiers and digital. I'd start with dedicated lines and plug the amps into the wall. Regarding digital, I own a Sound Application plc and have dedicated lines. The Sound Application is a fine plc but it does not isolate components (nor does the Shunyata or Audio Magic). This means that if you plug preamp and digital components, or multiple digital components, into one plc, you do get a degree of digital noise cross-contamination. If you then isolate the digital via an isolation transformer plugged into the plc, you have a lot of excess daisy chaining of cords and conditioners, which inherently tends to kill sound and reduce resolution. The better alternatives are either to have separate dedicated lines for each component, with filtering or isolation on each of the digital components, or else to have a single isolating and conditioning unit for the front end, providing that you can find one that is high enough in quality with low noise and no coloration.

If you really want to avoid 'dedicated crap', then go all out and use a high kva isolation transformer to feed your dedicated circuits or subpanel, and an upgraded grounding system.

The Audio Magic Eclipse is set up perfectly to isolate digital and analog. Two power cords required. I have them plugged into two dedicated outlets. that's the way to go..warren

Just a comment, since I'm in no position to know Audio Magic's current design. I'll be a bit surprised to find out that a passive plc can 'perfectly' isolate digital and analog, though any moves in this direction are [much] better than none. Anyone coming from a mixed signal or digital ic background knows the difficulty of preventing digital noise transfer, and most passive plc's are not very heavily engineered. Just skeptical of the word 'perfect' in this context, despite the separate power cords, though I could be wrong.