Does a good power conditioner reduce need for power supply upgrade?


Would like to hear Agoner’s opinion on this topic.  It appears to me that power conditioning as a part of power distribution role for your whole system, and high end external power supplies designed to either replace and beef up internal linear supplies (e.g. Naim approach) or to replace cheap switching wall warts or internal supplies supporting a single piece of equipment have a similar function, that being to reduce noise without restricting current.

Interested in what you think.

kn

Ag insider logo xs@2xknownothing

1st, have you seen the wire in the fuse?

For years, I used a chain where EVERYTHING that was on was collectively going thru a single tiny fuse, the entire load of amazing crecendos at loud volumes never drew more that that hard to see wire could pass..

2nd, I thought about my Furman P1800 PF R version

that always has 45 amps of current ready for momentary peaks. That means it is the Furman’s Capacitors that are my power plant, always the power source at any moment, not the wall or separate ckt or ckt bkr or street transformer, my own power storage in my rack, for as my fuse proved, is a small need..

IF you have actual problems, that’s different, but the majority of us solve imaginary non-existant problems, and

IF there is a rare actual problem, I can do something else for a while.

 

 Components internal power supplies always matter a great deal, to believe power conditioning somehow negates the need for quality power supplies is fool's gold. Power conditioning and component power supplies serve entirely unique purposes.

@sns I would be interested in any insights or specific information you can provide on how power supply and power conditioners purposes are unique.  I have a vague idea, but would like to understand more.  I know power supplies typically convert AC to DC and provide the right voltage and current for the device, but also have some power conditioning functions too.  That is about the extent of my knowledge. 

It still is very good to upgrade to a  decent LPS power supplies especially at the starting points 

for example get rid of the noisy wall wart a $10 piece of junk to the router That just adds more noise.

Like so many things in this hobby there appears to be no simple answer to power conditioning. And apparently there are various types of power problems that can be addressed.

my goto reference for this is live testing done by alpha audio which you can watch where they both subjectively and objectively show that different conditioning devices work better in some situations better than others and in some devices better than others and ‘conclude’ that the results are situation dependent and you must try the specific devices in their intended places to know if or how much they will help.