Power Conditioning on the Cheap


This is my first post here after a bit of lurking, so please be gentle.  I realize this subject must come up a fair amount and I've read erik_squires blog posts on the subject, but I was hoping to get the community's opinion on the relative merits of a few relatively basic power conditioners.  I've narrowed my list down to a few options at a range of (fairly modest) price points.  From low to high they are:

Furman PST-8D

ifi Power Station

Furman Elite-15 PF I

Shunyata PS10 w/ Venom Defender

Audioquest Niagara 1200

In a perfect world where I didn't have a limited budget I would probably buy something higher up the line from Shunyata, but since we live in a decidedly imperfect world, these are my options, although I would welcome other suggestions that fit within this price range.

I should also probably mention that while I value subjective reports on the sound quality of various products, generally speaking I give more weight to objective measurements or at least arguments based in sound science.  More embarrassingly, I also place a certain amount of value on aesthetics.  Aesthetic taste being inherently subjective, (a debatable point, but for the sake of argument lets just assume that it's true) lets just say that when I lust after completely unobtainable equipment it tends to be from companies like Soulution or Pilium rather than Dan D'Agostino or darTZeel.

incorporeus

@pesky_wabbit 

despite claims of elaborate filtration all they contained was a varistor and a capacitor

Not surprised, a lot of products consist of normal stuff in a fancy box.  After you install your dedicated lines, if you want to spend just a little money for protection and filtration, check out the Jon Risch ac filter described here and here.  I made two of them years ago and they continue to work great.  Take Five Audio in Canada used to offer a kit for this.  Unfortunately, I could no longer find the original links but you might ask around on audio asylum.

Underwood HIFi has a line of lower cost power conditioners and offers a trial period.

I am personally a fan of the Garth Powell units (Furman and Audioquest) that have storage in the unit for more power than the line can deliver for transients.
While I use the Niagara 7000 in home system to great effect, I needed to put together another much cheaper system and found a very old Furman reference 15 for sale. It’s pretty much the same as the current reference 15i units sold now except for cosmetics.

I just noticed a Furman reference 20 on flea bay for 800 obo.  I would imagine it would blow away even an Niagara 1200.  

 

Brick Wall offers a couple of power conditioners/protection. I can’t say about the improvement in sound, because I am just using one for my computer.

To my liking are the old BPT power isolation transformers, which were rated high over the need for current in many systems. The one that I bought many years ago had 6 secondary windings electrostatic shields for each winding, and also produced balanced power in the output. Each secondary is rated at 10 amps, but the primary is also rated for 10 amps, so that must be taken into consideration.

Got to admit to using Richard Gray products in the past but think that more than one needs to be considered.

A close second in my experience is an old PS Audio P300. I have one coming in Wednesday that has been thoroughly rebuilt by a good friend of mine who used to consult for Sudgen in Europe. I consider the extra money spent on the rebuild rather worth it. I have owned these units (the P300 in particular) like what they do given their limitations. Almost always used for source equipment.

I also agree with @mitch2.

And that a dedicated ground can't be overlooked, if available.

Objective? Here you go, from Audio Science Review, a deep look into power regenerators. 
 

Personally? I just use a nice TL line conditioner that has a protection circuit built in.

 

@mitch2 yeah, when you know what’s actually in the box you have to giggle

varistors change sound in a way some may find appealing, but squash dynamics big time. The outlets are very high quality and probably do offset their impact to a certain extent, but I would remove them in a heartbeat..