How much should a person spend to get a decent power conditioner?

As others have no doubt already commented, the cheapest way to get clean power and protect against surges/spikes is to install dedicated 20a lines using higher grade Romex or similar wiring back to a dedicated distributor box & ground. You can also install some nice audiohile wpo(s) such as Furutech GTX-D NCF or SR UEF Black. And to provide surge and over-voltage protection, you can get your Electrician to install a device like this - https://www.clipsal.com/surge-protection#.W0Cta7gRVPZ

In my situation, I bought an apartment off the plan. To retrofit dedicated lines now due to the layout of my apartment would have been a messy and expensive job. So my solution was to buy a Gigawatt PC-3 SE Evo conditioner which features 3 independant filtering branches, incl: a high current branch with capacitive storage to improve impulse response, over-voltage protection, robust surge protection & an accurate volt meter which measures input voltage in ’true RMS’. The Gigawatt works very well in conjunction with my Furutech GTX-D(g) wpo, but not exactly cheap at around $6kUS!

@atmasphere

Quote: "The best of them is the PS regenerator, which really can deliver a proper sine wave".

Possibly true unless like me you were one of the unfortunate souls who bought a PS Audio Power Plant Premier when they first came onto the market. My unit was one of the duds that later ended up in droves on Audio Advisor and advertised as "refurbished". One of the worst purchases in the high-end realm that I ever made.

To the OP: Spend whatever it takes to acquire 'balanced power' via Equitech. I recently added a Son of Q to my main rig and the difference is profound. Just do it!

Possibly true unless like me you were one of the unfortunate souls who bought a PS Audio Power Plant Premier when they first came onto the market. My unit was one of the duds that later ended up in droves on Audio Advisor and advertised as "refurbished". One of the worst purchases in the high-end realm that I ever made.

I consider Elgar power conditioners to be much better. They were built for industrial commercial applications and simply had to work. They are not very pretty but they are reliable.

Have you told us about your system?

What is your budget?