Who has dumped the power conditioner?

Elizabeth, Just a minor point here, but the fact that your various outlets are rated as "x" amps and those "x"s add up to more than 200 does NOT mean you have at least a 200 amp service. You MAY have a 200 amp service (it's not totally unlikely in a modern apartment)but even if you have a 200 amp panel you may not have 200 amp service. The size of the service is limited by the size of the service cable feeding into your meter. The cable coming from the meter to your panel SHOULD be rated to the amperage of the panel. It can be more (and must be by code), but never less. But I have seen plenty of new services installed that were rated higher than the lines feeding them from the power company. The point is that you will never get more juice than what the power lines feeding your panel are capable of delivering, regardless of how all of those individual breaker sizes add up. Lastly, those breakers (that is, individual circuit sizes) are rated at a certain level (15, 20, 30 amp etc) but those (levels--in amperes)are the points at which the circuit breaker will cut out. All the circuits in a panel are not going to be maxing out at once, generally speaking.

I had both a conditioner (APC) as well as a high end outlet. I found the outlet (Furetech) didn't do anything and the conditioner seemed to stifle the sound a little. I don't use either now.

I recently tried to replace my PS Quintet with the naim-recommended wiremold strip as my power seems pretty stable and I don't really need surge protection. The Quintet however rendered a fuller sound and soundfield and slightly quieter background. I ended up keeping it.

I'm happy with my dedicated lines and Transparent PowerIsolators. A 100 amp system separate from the power for the rest of the home is dedicated to the AV system. 85 feet of armored 00-gauge cooked & cryoed copper wire runs from the meter to a dedicated Square D QO Panel with switchable lightning grade surge protector. There are 5 armored 12-gauge cooked & cryoed copper wire runs from the panel: 1 for each of the mono blocks, 1 for analog components, 1 digital components and 1 for the video projector. Each circuit has a Transparent PowerIsolator between it and the components connected to that circuit. Most of the PCs are Purist Anniversary, which are much better in my system than Transparent, VD Revelation or Stealth Dream.

As far as I can tell, there is no loss of the awesome dynamics or imaging and the soundstage is wide and deep, though not as tall as I would like.

The PowerIsolators are 3 years old now, so it would not surprise me if the SR Tesla Powercell is indeed better.

Ed

Jtwrace wrote:

Very interesting...you might be onto something. I remember in the Kaiser speaker room last year at RMAF there was a power conditioner that was basically just that. He said it was the equivalent to something like 10 miles of wire inside.

Not 10 miles of wire, 10 miles of skin. The wire is but 70 cm.

Louis Motek