Does power conditioning really matter?

Monster is a big profit producer for stores...that's why they push it so much. Avoid their gear unless it's about 50% off.....not that it's bad stuff, it's just way way overpriced.

It is wise to get a surge protector for all the gear....and then to connect EVERY wire thru that protector. It does not good at all if you put the tv power thru it, but not the antenna/cable input.

Unless your friend has some reason to believe that his power is terrible (and there are very few people who really have terrible power), he does NOT need a power conditioner. That's markeing hype and it will make absolutley no difference in the sound or picture quality.

Tell your friend to go to Home Depot and pick up a surge protector....and plug everything in. Don't waste money on the monster stuff....don't even waste money on the monster speaker cable...buy speaker cable at home depot as well...he will never tell the difference.

Note: If you have a very high end audio system, then maybe you could benefit from power conditioning, but then you'd be buying $1000 interconnect cables and speaker cables.

Yes I totally agree. Go with PS Audio products. I have the Duet and it's a surge suppressor and a decent power conditioner. They use superior internal components to Monster. Monster is probably an overrated product line. Besides the owner sues all companies who use the Monster name. The folks at PS Audio really know their business.

You can see the improvement in picture quality with a good power conditioner.

Somec59.....maybe YOU can see some improvement, but I have seen absolutely none...nada...no change at all.

Why does everyone assume that because they do or think they do hear/see some difference....then everyone else will see the great improvement as well.

For 99% of the world, it's hype....I am going to assume that although I have 20 years in pro sound (live sound..not sales) and can't see or hear most of the differences claimed on these boards...that there is maybe 1% of the audiofiles who can hear some difference.

Don't generalize folks....what YOU hear/see isn't necessarily what the next person hears/sees. And in a blind test, about 1/2 the people who claim to perceive a difference would fail.

Most of the time when someone tells me that something's too loud/too soft..or muffled or bright...I go into the sound booth for about a minute...come back out and ask if it's better. 99.9% of the time I get "wow...great, what a difference....and, as you guessed,I changed nothing.

I would have to disagree with most of the above posts. I use a Monster unit for surge protection, and it has no detrimental effect on the sound of my system. Very recently I tried a PS Audio Quintet, and was extremely disappointed. There was a very slight improvement with digital components, but it was VERY detrimental to LP playback - greatly shrunken soundstage, very compressed dynamics, and it removed other things as well - I could not hear nearly as much of the ambient sound of the original recording space, nor were instrumental timbres as accurate, it seemed to remove some of the harmonic overtones.

All that said, power conditioners are supposedly much more effective for digital video than digital audio, so you might give a cheap one a try for that purpose. I would definitely not recommend one for two-channel listening, especially analog.