Power Conditioners

I looked at the Shunyata Research Venom Defender AC Power Line Reducer and even though I have worked in AC power systems I can't begin to tell what it does (or might do).  I am not trolling or trying to thread crap.

My question for all of you who have purchased these (what I consider to be questionable and esoteric) power "conditioning" products, is this:  have you tried just a UPS that produces perfect sine wave power?  Seems like that would deal with all the potential issues you might have including voltage fluctuation, line noise from other (non-audio) connected devices, etc.  Plus, it would in all likelihood be much cheaper and quite possibly provide surge protection (though I'm not certain about that).

Hello,
What I find helpful in this regard is star grounding and grounding using one receptacle outlet. I have two dedicated circuits each feeds a Nordost distribution unit which uses star grounding inside the box. Each distribution box has one outlet dedicated for grounding, meaning all connections would ground through that outlet only. So I connect the pre-amplifier to one such grounding outlet in one distribution box and keep the other grounding outlet empty in the other distribution box. This allows me to use two dedicated circuits yet ground using one receptacle outlet, very much needed for lowering the noise floor. This gives me the best performance. I tried using Shuniyata, Clarus and a few other power conditioners including the one that Nordost has but none of them really worked as per my satisfaction. Regardless of the sequence of how I connected these power conditioners to the Nordost distribution box, the performance was not at par. So the bottom line, I could not leave the Nordost power distribution units out of my two channel system. Given that Nordost distribution boxes don’t do any power conditioning I could only attribute that performance gain to the star grounding and a little bit to their micro mono-filament technology.

Additionally I use 10 gauge Romex wire and Furutech GTX NCF-R receptacle each of which adds to the enhanced system performance.

Another thing that added to my AC power performance was the set of upgraded electronics. Very recently I have upgraded my DAC, Pre & Power Amplifiers to all Bricasti units from mostly Parasound components and I found that they are relatively less susceptible to AC quality issues.
All these didn’t complete solve the AC power quality issues in my system because the system performance is not consistent throughout the day and it sounds the best at 2:00 AM. However I don’t feel stressed thinking about the AC power quality issue now than before and moved my focus from the AC power to something else in my two channel system...
Thanks.

I m not convinced about active power conditioners in front of power amps, nor of low voltage devices, for that matter. All have an impact on the sound, not always for the better, either because of shifts in phase, compression or emphasis of parts of the frequency spectrum. In my experience the best results can be obtained by installing a separate spur all the way to the mains box and then employing passive filters. Highly recommended: Acoustic Revive RTP-4. My power amp is a Wavac EC300B and short of $30,000 Wavac power conditioning I have found nothing that comes even close.

They are not snake oil. I had a very slight (but audible) buzz/hum with nothing playing and the volume at a normal level. Put in a Furman 15 and the noise vanished. I don't know what they are talking about with extra wall warts. You plug the Furman in to the wall and everything else you want into it. It even has different outlets for amps, low current, and video. Peace of mind and less noise. And for less than $1K - even less if used.