I'm convinced: my Power Conditioner was ruining...

Power regeneration & regulation if necessary in your home/area, might well be something to continue on with. That said, and I'm not a big fan of Monster anything, you might want to save up some more $$$ prior to making your selection.

If your voltage is stable but your post suggests it is not, maybe a passive cond will help.

My suspiscion is the level of regulator and cond you are using is simply low... and your own recent exp says about as much, given the results from the outlet direct are/were superior to those from the power 'fixin' apparatus on hand.

many of the devices made today do operate thru a range of voltages... from 110 - 125 volts. Mine stays right around 117v. New house & new service, now 5 yr old. Modeerately infested sub urban area.

Brown outs & low voltage situations would concern me too. I'd like to find out just how low they can or do go personally. If under 110 I'd likely opt for a pretty good power regenerator like the Premeir from PSA or some mo' upscale industrial unit from Square D or the like.

I live in an area where thunder storms are fairly regular. Lightening does indeed cause damage even if the stuff isn't energized too, though low voltage gear suffers more readily than do well built amps, as do abrupt off & on power cycling or interruptions from things like tree limbs touching the power lines..

For me these items are a pretty big concern so I use PSA & RSA routinely. If I could afford more I'd opt for a better RSA unit than my present Haley as I have no low voltage issues and don't require regulation..

Otherwise, if things sound great out of the socket... play your stuff that way. Mo betta power conds will genarelly provide you mo betta results.

Other's here might be able to point you towards one for $600 which can help. I'd say again, a larger investment there likely will be required for your particular situation.

Good luck.

I have been in the industry for 20 years, and good power conditioning can make a huge improvement, but bad power conditioning can suck the life right out of a system.

I heard a demo of a $2,000.00 Richard Gray vs $4,000.00 worth of Monster power conditioning the the Richard Gray made the system sound way better!

Nowdays there are even better conditioners than the Richard Gray, for $600 there is nothing out there that I would recommend save up and buy a good unit.

Kphinney, prior to your discovery, did you have all your gear plugged into the Monster? Amp included? I found my amps sounded better going straight to the wall with preamp and sources going to a passive conditioner (PSA Quintet). However, your post is food for thought. I'd like to pull my conditioner out of the picture and "remember" what it sounds like that way. It's good to do these kind of tests once in a while.

Save your money. I went through multiple conditioners that INCREASED the noise level in my system. Even my wife, who could care less about audio, agreed that the conditioners were making the system worse. IMHO they are a snake oil product in audio.

I am convinced your power conditioner was ruining your sound too. Brown power with voltage drops is not the same as "dirty" power resulting from digital and/or high frequency noise, and does not have the same affect on audio performance. Presumably your APC is dealing with the brown power problems?

I have yet to hear a power conditioner that improved the performance of an even reasonably noise-free AC supply from the wall. PC's definitely make systems I have heard, including my home systems, sound "different", often "smoother" but not better if the AC is already fairly "clean" IMO. Dynamic peaks get clipped and smoothed over, so everything starts to sound like Steely Dan's early to mid-seventies mega-overdubbed mush.

This doesn't mean that there aren't conditioners out there that can significantly improve system performance by scrubbing noise from the wall supply in difficult AC environments, or reduce pollution from your digital gear back into the AC lines - I use a power conditioner with my sound system in my office in a highly polluted office building electrical environment, but this is the only place I have found a benefit to date. In agreement with Mingles, I am especially dubious of putting something in the line between the wall and your amp - in fact I am temped to hard-wire my amp at home directly to the AC supply line in the wall!

If you need multiple outlets, try this piece of gear instead of a power conditioner in a reasonable AC environment, plugging your amp into the first outlet or directly to the APC, and your digital components into the last outlets used -

http://generubinaudio.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=GRAS&Product_Code=Wmold&Category_Code=acc

Finally, I wonder if you tried unplugging your APC from the wall and running your system off the battery alone for a few minutes. That might provide the best sound you can get, albeit for short listening periods!