Best Power Conditioner

I previously had my entire system plugged into a API Powerwedge 116. I was intriguied with the talk about the P300 and bought one. It was a major improvement over what I was using. The Powerwedge did seem to reduce the noise floor, but what I didn't realize was that it was muffling the dynamics and sort of greying the sound. I was of the mindset that the powerwedge must be better than nothing. I left my amps plugged into the Powerwedge because the P300 can't produce enough power to power the amps. What I was really amazed to find was how much better my system sounded when I plugged the amps directly into the wall. It really made my system more dynamic and lively. My point is don't assume that a power conditioner will always be better, I do agree with the others that the PS Audio Powerplants do make a big diffrence however. Also Carl is right about the hum that the produce, it doesn't come through the speakers but directly from the unit. I can barely hear it from my listening position which is actually kind of irritating

Plsl - can you explain the star ground? Did you connect just the "3rd leg" or also the nuetral leg?

My AC power has tons of junk yours may not. The 8 gauge ground wire is attached to multiple 12 foot copper rods driven ito the ground outside the listening room and then the preamp ground terminal. There is a seperate 12 gauge ground wire for each of the PS Audio units and the two monblocks soldered to the 8 gauge right at the preamp ground. These 12 gauge grounds are used as the ground instead of the ground from the AC circuit. There are two sets of dedicated lines each pulled as a three wire 240VAC with no splices from the main service box. One 240VAC is split for the Melos Monoblocks. The otheris split for the PS audio units. I believe that alporter goes further in isolating the digital from the analog AC circuits but I can't see any junk from the digital side on the analog line with my oscilloscope. I also can't hear a difference when I turn off the digital units. This is probably due to using Bybe filters before the PS audio units. I can when I turn off my DMX digital music satillite receiver but isolating that is a whole different post.

Maybe the best Power Conditioner is still in the future. I'm thinking of the technology in the PS Audio is clearly the best approach but it cost an arm and a leg. Since the technology is not proprietary, (any one of us could build a 60 Hz power amp with lots of feedback)other manufacturers should be getting on this bandwagon and driving the cost of these conditioners down substantially in the next year.

I've been dealing with Sergui (interlinkhouse.com) for a while now. After spending a good deal of time speaking with him, and having used Chang's, I decided to go with dedicated lines and dedicated grounds. I am running 4 dedicated sockets Hosp. grade, 8 ga, 40 amp breakers, etc. I'm gonna try his teflon insulated 10ga silver plated OFC for the groundsand use silver solder for the sake of obsessiveness.( Though I guess I could run the lines directly from the transfomer to be truely obsessive, but that would raise the price a good bit) I plan on running individual dedicated grounds for each socket in a star ground configuration. I've heard from both Sergui and other that this configuartion should take care of line problems better than any power conditoner. The whole setup will probable cost about the same as one of the better conditioners. I'll have the whole thing up and running in a month or so, then I'll know the actual results. Drop me a line if any of you have gone to the trouble of doing all this type of work. Monroemed@aol.com P.S. I have been really happy with Sergui's interconnects, speaker cables etc. Later! Steve