Power Conditioners


Gee, I'm starting to feel like a poster of posts lately, but I am finding a lot interesting, sometimes controversial, comments from the "YouTubers" these days, much more so than in the past.

There are a multitude of threads on this subject here on AG of the what's, why's, how's and when's of PC's but not many on the thoughts of having none.

I wondered what your hands-on experiences were with power conditioners and if they added something to your musical enjoyment or as in this fellows case, taken away from it?

  https://youtu.be/XjzlFkcZP1g
high-amp
Vinylshadow, you could plug an arch welder into a 30 amp line! You have to remember that the impedance of all these devices as as much to do with current draw as anything. They are not low impedance loudspeakers. An amplifier can put 3 amps into the loudspeakers while only drawing 1/2 amp from the wall. It is converting voltage to current. 12 amps is more than enough to run all that you mention. You are probably only putting a watt or two into the surround speakers. People have this crazy tendency to over power their systems. The power supplies represent the choke point and most line level equipment and some power amplifiers are tightly regulated. Putting fatter wire in the wall is not going to make them perform better. Amplifiers that might overwhelm a 15 amp circuit are generally run 220 volt like the big Boulder. Also frequently forgotten is that it all goes back to the same panel so from a noise standpoint it is all being hooked together. Hopefully your Gray will isolate your more sensitive line level equipment. My own system is as quiet as a mouse. It is dead silent even with the volume cranked to the max and I use absolutely nothing. When I turn on my projector when the lamp fires up it will make the system stumble I put a transformer on it and it still stumbled. I put a power regenerator on it and it still stumbled so I sold it all, takes up too much space. If you have a source of noise in the house say like the refrigerator see if the Gray protects your system from it. 
Use Balanced interconnects with your amps if you can. Tie wrap your cables neatly into two bundles one power, one line level. If a power line has to cross a line level interconnect do it at 90 degrees for less induction. Nothing bothers me more than wire thrown around like spaghetti. 
The Siemans is a fine surge protector. I'm not sure which one I have in there. The tech installed it when the generator was installed. Many of them are sacrificial so it is a good idea to keep a spare around. I'm not sure about the Siemans. The manual will let you know. You'll have to turn off the mains when you install it so have plenty of battery lighting ready!
I forgot to mention that you have circuit breakers which are going to limit the amount of current you can draw from any one line and modern breakers are quite sensitive. You will know if you are overloading a line.
The Gray does not isolate their outlets. I've been corresponding with Garth from AudioQuest as I am considering replacing the 12 outlet Gray 1200 with an AQ 12 outlet Niagara 5000(4 high voltage and 8 low voltage outlets). He was very complimentary towards Richard Gray and the 1200. But the Gray is quite inefficient in their internal Henry chokes and their peak current is only 4A. That is good but not enough. I need more amperes for transient peaks. All of my Classe to amp I.C.'s are balanced. My lines are 2 dedicated 20A and 30A(with a 20A duplex).

And by using the 5000 I will not need a whole house surge suppressor. And I can plug all components into the 5000.
My system is also quiet when I turn up the volume in between songs and in the sources. But, noise rears it's ugly head during music and I've read that you don't know how much noise there is until it's removed.

Yes, there will be significant expense getting an AQ 5000 and a Hurricane power cable for it, but, I feel I need to make a change and the Torus RM20 is very good but I would not plug my amps into it so I need something else that I can.