Power Conditioners


Not sure if I placed it in the correct topic but here goes. I was just wondering how power conditioners work, as I want to buy one. There are conditioners with only filtered inputs and conditioners with some filtered inputs and some unfiltered. I believe the unfiltered ones are for analogue devices. But why should these go into the unfiltered part? If I buy a power conditioner for example with only filtered inputs, will I not be able to put my class A amp in? Or will it have a negative effect?
sjeesjie
@dannad,

All large electrolytics are usually supplanted on their side with smaller hi grade mica capacitors around  0.1 -> 1uF to short out the hi frequency noise.

By rectification, I meant to say the peak value of any variation on the txformer output will be caught by the large filter capacitor.  Any hi frequency noise will be snubbed by the capacitors in parallel with the rectifier diodes.

99% of all amps have all these hi freq eliminating capacitors in place.

I bought a power Wedge years ago and it made a huge improvement in my system. When I bought a new system, I also upgraded to a Shunyata Venom strip. It has a Carling breaker to protect your equipment, in the event of a surge, and has a separate power filter that plugs into the strip, so you can use it with or without the power filter. 
Clean power is very important for good sound quality. How important depends on how noisy your electrical environment is. If you get this right then room correction/control, vibration and rfi/emf control being the other battles you need to fight. 

If you want to hear how you might benefit from a power conditioner listen to your familiar tracks then go to your consumer unit and turn off as much of the rest of your house as you dare. If you have stuff on the same ring as the music system unplug anything you can too. Now listen again. If you hear a good improvement then you can benefit from a power conditioner.

Cakyol please try this too. Modern electrics can be very noisy indeed. All those switch mode power supplies for our phones, tablets , routers, ethernet switches.... noisy. LEDs noisy especially if you have dimmable ones. This noise can be well outside of audible frequencies so may not always be measurable at the output of a DAC but this can play havoc with soundstage.

Eriks blog is a cost effective solution. I went for 2nd hand Isotek Sigmas gen 2 and DIY DC blocking power cord.  


My 20 year old Shunyata Hydra 8 was great.  Used it with Audioquest Hurricane and Tornado cords.  But, the power amp went directly to the wall.  Brought home an Audioquest 5000 and could hear no difference, no improvement.  Boy was my dealer annoyed when I brought it back. Sometime later picked up a Shunyata Denali... what a nice improvement.  Everything goes into it including the 150WPC tube power amp.  I think we all have somewhat different situations to be addressed almost by trial and error of equipment solutions.
@cakyol - I sincerely wished you were correct in the case of my particular system, that it would make no significant positive difference.
However, I cannot simply go back, it does sound better.. it just does.

And it's not just my amplifier plugged into it, everything is.

I had a quick look at the first power supply (sorry it's late and I need to hit the hay as I work tomorrow) and didn't see the technology I spoke of in it.
After the transformers I didn't see any inductors?? I didn't see the second circuit sorry.

I am sure there are some exceptional filtering circuits in high end gear, I guess mine isn't that high end and the conditioner helped?
Something like YMMV?