Best place to live for good quality power

Ok. You win on the most original question recently.

I will admit that I never thought of where I should move to get great power. I can say, I used to live in Tucson, Arizona. That is not it… because of the thunderstorms that knock out the power during the summer… they are truly beautiful though.

I now live in Vancouver Washington in an area with no above ground power lines. The power is reliable. But, my system still sounds better with my power conditioner. There are a few individuals that live in places that sound as good without a power conditioner. I guess that are the conditions you are looking for.

So, I can say Tucson, AZ and Vancouver Washington is not it.

I always thought it was $0 to $10K (small) factor in building a great system… whether to use power conditioning or not. The room, speakers, and electronics being far more important. The $10K is, either do a lot of power conditioning or none.

Fyi, my streamer is battery powered (Aurrender W20SE), and a couple of the better sounding headphone amps I have heard were battery powered. So, clearly good power is important… on the other hand, the highest quality preamps, and amps are two box solutions with power is at least half of the design. The best sounding stuff has put a huge investment in power management. I am not sure being located in one of those areas actually negates the necessity of all that power management stuff.

Alaska

Most people have no way of answering this question.  Here is what my power looks like in a scope:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kxPz87c8iEVoRxTd7

4.2% THD.  I live in a suburb of San Diego.  Near a substation, mix of residential and industrial users.

Liviing in AK and HI might get you less load but no guarantee the small diesel generator supplying the grid makes good quality power.

Those who think they are running off batteries are not really. They are running of the relatively cheap inverter that came with their battery and if they put a scope on it they might be shocked at the ugly sine wave.

The only way to get a clean sine wave is to get a good regenerator.  Here is the sine wave out of mine.  0.1% thd.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ftBgf4cPveGunn679

Jerry

In my experience, it is a hit or miss proposition. I think you have to start with a serious audit of the power coming into your playback room. I live in a single family house. I had the meter pulled, made sure there was no corrosion (it's a 2004 re-do, with updates I did, of an 1880's house). The power where I am in Austin, proximate to downtown, is better than what I experienced in the lower Hudson Valley- say 20 miles north of NYC- largely due to the age of the infrastructure. That said, I took steps to make sure what power was delivered was as good as I could get it within reason. I had the main service panel gone over, replaced breakers where necessary, installed a separate sub-system for the main system which takes 60 amps from the main household service and feeds a big iso transformer via 4 gauge to the service panel next to the listening room. From there, I run dedicated 10 amp lines. This is all consistent with good practices.

I'd say relying simply on what the local power utility delivers can be hit or miss. You can be in a remote area, where there is little commerical activity and still suffer from power issues. I experienced that in two locations along the Hudson.

I'm not an advocate of "power conditioners" or "filters"-- I think you throw baby out with bath water. The large transformer probably does something, but honestly, the power here, even in close proximity to downtown Austin, is much better than what I experienced in a low density village along the Hudson River north of NY.

Part of it may be who you are sharing a transformer with. There are a couple of old apartment complexes adjacent, and I don't share power from the utility from either of them.

Here's the Iso-transformer. I am not suggesting that it is a magical solution but I like having it: 

Is this a trick question?