Power regenerator vs conditioner

@craig - I agree with you in that you would think regenerated "perfect" AC would be the better choice, yet so many audiophiles seem to go with the passive conditioners and I'm not sure why.  I myself have an Audience conditioner, which I like very much, but I've never tried a Power Plant.  I don't think cost is the issue as the better conditioners are at least as expensive as the power plants.  

I have owned passive conditioners, active conditioners, balanced transformers and regenerative conditioners. They all offer benefits. They do not sound identical.

The best conditioner we've run into so far are the Elgar conditioners, where were made a long time ago. They actively and dynamically process the AC power, removing distortion, noise and the like, and the output does not have more than 0.5THD at full load. They also regulate line voltage. Any that you find (ebay is the best source I've found so far) will need refurbishment. The only conditioners offered to high end audio that come anywhere close are the ones made by PSAudio.


The best way to use the Elgar in my opinion is to have it wired into the circuit that feeds your audio room. They made a 5000VA unit that can run a 20amp line with no worries. All the Elgars have a cooling fan which means they probably will need to be in a different room. They aren't particularly pretty either, having been made for commercial/industrial applications where clean power was a necessity.

I use PS Audio older Power Plant Premier. I have Purist power cord from the wall to it and better Purist from the regenerator to power amp. Still, sound quality varies dramatically depending on how bad the incoming current is. If I plug the amp directly into the wall, the system is unlistenable most of the time, the wall current is that bad. So yes, regenerator helps a lot but it's not really good enough. Maybe newer PS Audio regenerators are much better, I don't know. Anyone compared ?
My SS amp is 80 watt/ch. Tape deck cares less about the current than any other piece of equipment in my set up, turntable and power amp care most.

If the goal is to improve the sound quality (soundstage, detail, dynamics, etc) and the issue is "noisy" AC, it would seem to me that a power regenerator such as PS Audio P15 would be far superior to a "conditioner" such as a Shunyata Denali or Hydra or Triton.  Is this correct?

No, it is not correct. The first part of the question you ask, "if the goal is to improve sound quality (soundstage, detail, dynamics, etc)" is fine. That is indeed the goal. But then you combine that with, "and the issue is..." as if you know what the issue is. If you know what the issue is then go build your own! The problem is precisely that no one really knows what the issue is! 

That is why tvad is correct, all you can do is go by how they sound. Either listen for yourself or read a lot of reviews and go by what people hear. Not what they measure! We don't know enough to go by measurement. Not even close! Or else this would all be so very simple. Go by what people hear only and you will be fine. 

Give you an example. Part of what contributes to the improved sound quality you want is nothing more than a good steady stream of power. Music sucks power very unevenly with lots of transient spikes. Every time this happens there is a very brief voltage drop. You can improve this with something as simple as a large cap. I had a friend one time scored one at Boeing Surplus, brought it over, and it was scary as hell but we hooked it up and you would be shocked (heh) at the improvement. No, seriously. It was a nice improvement.  

You could also connect just about any decent size transformer. People call them isolation transformers. They are ALL isolation transformers! It's just the way they work. It is very hard to make a transformer that is linear at high frequences. A lot of line noise is RF, that is all high frequency, and so they all isolate from RF to some degree. All of em. So that is another way. 

I can keep going like this with examples all day long. Bottom line, all these various factors contribute, but no one understands exactly how much of which is best, and so all you can do is go and listen. You will see.