Power Conditioners Suited to Digital Front End

Pubul57: With just a transport and DAC you will barely be using 50-80watts on a Power Plant 300 and will not need the fan.. if you get over about 160watts you will need the fan which can be replaced with a quiet bearing computer fan. Some tube DAC's use more power, but I haven't run into that problem running Wadia, EAD HT processors, Meridan, Gamut, Theta, etc.. I have never had any problems then again I have never had mine over 120watts over since I bought it.

There are three camps... and these are my finding as I own all three styles.

Regeneration: PS Audio (PS Audio can also increase the volts to 120 which add some slam and dynamics to your digital front end and of course the noise floor drops in a huge way.) If your system is bright and overly dynamic this might not be the answer for you. Exact Power makes a quasi Regenerator that only regenerates the difference of good to bad power using Class D amplification so it can run 1300watts, but doesn't offer the texture differences that the PS Audio Multiwave (I,II,tubewave, etc..) provide. Regenerators are awesome for Plasma and Projectors!!!! PS Audio Premier PowerPlant supports up to 1500watts with their new amplification but can only correct -5 volts (I have 125-126v at my house which causes transformers to hum in most gear unless it is on a regenerator)

Balanced Power: Exact Power (other model), Platinum Power PP1, BPT ,etc... - Sound quality is silky smooth and a little more delicate on balanced power (some preamp can't be run on it especially tubes depending on the design (Aestheix, etc..)) Usually they can't power amplifiers (except for the Platinum Power PP1 which has huge transformers and 20 amp input, The large BPT might also)

Passive Filters: Running Springs, Sound Applications, Shunyata, PS Audio Power Director's, PS Audio's Ultimate Outlets, Tice - if you have good power coming in and dedicated outlets you might be able to get away with the least amount of filtering... the less is more crowd. Once again most filtering works best at dropping the noise floor (video term... black than black settings). Also Isolating digital contamination from analog devices is critical in all the above designs.

First spend money on making sure your house is grounded correctly, Drop in at least 2 dedicated 20amp lines with an audiophile outlet (20amp hospital grade at least), and then finally look at conditioning. Then get crazy with powercords when your done...
Chris

I use a Running Springs as well, but more out of a matter of convenience. If you truly want to use this for digital gear get the best isolation transformer you can afford.

How about an iso transformer. There's a bunch of Hulda/GE 1200 watt units with medical grade outlets on EBay for $150 and plenty of Tripp-Lites. 500 watts for the front end would be plenty.

Pubul57-

Cytocycle has given you some great advice:

First - run at least one to two dedicated lines with grounding
Second - power conditioning
Third - better power cords

For me, my system benefitted the most from the dedicated lines that were grounded. The power conditioner was next in offering the most benefit. Lastly, the power cords offered a small amount of benefit.

Great advice from Cyto- also agree 110% with sc53- bought my Ensemble Isolinks years ago, and for digital front-end only, I have not found better. However- note- I had some small issues when 'daisy-chaining' them into a larger blaanced power unit (BPT 2.5). They seem to like being fed from a passive strip better- perhaps some issue with too many transformers in the path.