POWER: conditioners vs filters vs cords

I will cast my vote along with Redkiwi, Garfish and Marcy. I have had similar experiences with treatments, and I have tried more than a half dozen in last few years, only to be disappointed. Only upgrading the primary electrical service to your home (and system) seem to be a sure fire improvement in every case.

I'll agree with the post directly above (and others) with one exception. I own an Innouye Line Conditioner (highly recommended by UHF Magazine in Canada) and find it to work exceptionally well with my turntable, but that is it. My integrated amp definitely sounds better plugged into a hospital grade outlet in the wall. Decent power is not a real problem where I am (London, Canada, pop. 300,000) and the CD player may show a very minor improvement (really close to call-could go either way) plugged into the conditioner during the day, but at night time, when I do most of my listening, CD sound is definitely better plugged straight into the wall, so that's where it is all the time. So my advice would be to investigate good powercords for your system first unless you're using a turntable which "may" benefit from some kind of conditioning.

There are cases where people living in apartments don´t have the chance for dedicated lines + grounding so AC quality and your home place situation might shorten your choices.

As many have said I believe the first line of defense in the quest for pure power is to optimize your existing AC power delivery system.Everyone,even apartment dwellers can check circuits and outlets for possible noise contributing problems.It's easy to trace a circuit in your home.With a tester and a little leg work you can check whats plugged into the same line as your audio gear.It might be that fluorecent light,dimmer switch or computer upstairs thats adding noise.The goal is to minimize the sources of interference before going to a conditioner.This initial step will also help a great deal in getting the most out of whatever unit you choose.An excellent product for those that can't install dedicated lines are the Audio Prism Quietlines,they simply plug into outlets near your system and shunt noise to ground,inexpensive and quite effective.I'm fortunate to be a homeowner with access to my panel and experience wiring houses.I needed to increase the service size in my home and had an additional line 'from the pole'run in where I installed a seperate small panel with audio only circuits.This is the ultimate AC delivery system short of building a power plant in your backyard ( Iv'e considered a small solar powered system) or going to some battery powered system.One last point is that no matter how refined your AC system may be your dwelling is still connected to the same power grid as every house,business and factory in your area and is subject to all the fluctuations and disturbances they generate.If someone can build a power regenerator (like the PS audio units) that run cool,produce perfect 60 cyc. sinewave,and are affordible,thats the way I'd go.....

looking for opinions? There are two products on the market similar to the Audio Prisim Quietlines. They are the Blue Circle Noisehound recently auctioned on this site by Simplymusic and the Enacom Filter that is available from UHF magazine audio store. see uhfmag.com It was reviewed in issue 54. Anyone with experience on either one? Steve