Amps In Wall Or Conditioner?

do not put the dedicated line (s) on separate legs of the  main panel. Rather get motors on the opposite leg e.g. freezer, fridge, AC, furnace. When you spec the wire size, get the max the electrician can correctly terminate. The marginal cost to upsize to max is normally pretty low.

Next get any switch mode aka wall wart power supply items on the PC, preferably on dedicated line. Depending on the quality level of your DAC it may need go on PC “ dirty “ circuit. Listen is the test. Cheap DACs lacking a Faraday cage normally find themselves on the dirty side.

then listen and experiment w remaining analog gear.

Thanks, all. As planned, stereo amp stays in the wall. Conditioner goes in the wall. DAC, streamers, CD go in the conditioner. Analog sources can probably go anywhere(?). Preamp and sub amp are the floaters. Then we listen and fiddle and await the electrician, more like Godot than the Iceman. Sorry for dumb question; my first tryout with an actual conditioner vs. Furman 8 + Quattro 4.

also if your breakers and or panel are older, consider replacing audio related breakers and clean / tighten ALL panel terminations.

enjoy the music

Depends on the power conditioner. I use a Puritan 156 and it does not limit current in any way. I tried going into my direct 20 amp line vs the Puritan. The Puritan sounded better. So it depends on the conditioner. The Puritan also has the optional Ground Master system and blocks DC. The system sings more beautifully with the amp plugged into the Puritan. My amp is the Circle Labs A200. The Puritan also quiets buzzing toroidal transformers and that is yet another plus.

Just this weekend I tried the wall vs the Puritan again just to confirm. It was quite obvious the Puritan was the way to go.

Other conditioners may limit current and negatively impact sound quality. Other conditioners may not have independently isolated outlets and thus mixing noise from digital components in with analog components. So it comes down to the unit in question and actual listening tests.

tomic601 +1. Fortunately, no wall warts in the system and DAC is a good one. If an electrician ever shows up I will have him follow your advice.

grannyring, have definitely looked at Puritan, which must be the gold standard as many other users verify your results. Given a larger budget and readier availability, Puritan is where I would go. For now, if the AQ Niagara can just clean up the DAC and streamers, I will call it a success.