Power Conditioner?

Any thoughts on a power conditioner? I was told there is a big difference in sound, and its good for electrical issues, is that true? They say a good one costs over $2000, I was looking at a Torus.

Music,

The power conditioner will have no effect to the sound of your system. I would advise to spend the $ only if you want the insurance that it will protect your system from any power surges. Yes they are not cheap, but I purchased a good Furman (Elite 20PFi) new for $1200 that has 12 receptacles. This protects all of my stereo equipment, TV, and video gear via the same 30 Amp breaker wired directly to my equipment rack. I know that hospitals use Furman to save lives and bands use them to protect many thousands of $ for their pro equipment. If you have more than $10K in your rack it might help you sleep at night as it does for me - with the cost of vintage tubes being as they are. It also has enough capacitance to cover for a sudden demand of amperage without tripping the circuit - Nice if you are really using up the watts.

FYI... I mention Furman as it is a well respected brand. I have seen several members of this forum share their pics and use Furman also. There are other quality brands. Just do your homework before you open that wallet. I looked up the Torus. It looks like is is a quality piece, but the price - Ouch, and it had fewer receptacles and I could not find a service that it provided over the Furman. I also understand that some folks are just as happy with their version that costs even less than what I have. These are the questions that audiophiles and wanna-be audiophiles like me have to make sometimes.

Mike

My first real experience with a power line conditioner came in 1986?/7 when I picked up the VPI turntable and record cleaner line to sell in my small hifi shop. One of the items was the VPI PLC for their HW19-II turntable which I thought was probably hoodoovoodoo but I ordered one. Not only could I hear the difference using if for the ttable, but I experimented with using it on cd players, amps, preamps, etc.
I heard a discernible positive difference in most, but not all, cases. I have since tried some of the others out there, but none of the crazy expensive stuff. Currently using a Tripp Lite LCR2400 , hope it outputs a "true sine wave" as Bob mentioned, not sure if it does though.

I've kept a pair of APC S-15 power conditioners alive for some obvious reasons in Vermont.

What comes off the grid is pretty bad. Good luck finding a clean sine wave. Also glitches from power lines snapping against each other in high winds.

1. They keep the voltages steady throughout the day and automatically convert the AC to DC then back to AC with a pure sine wave on the outputs.

2. They also protect the digital components feeding the signals to the amp. A cable box, Blu-ray player and various DACs are all computers inside. Every time a glitch happens they reboot and sometimes lose their minds.

Would a good quality power backup work? I belive they put out a true sine wave and cost much less than 2K.

If you mean a UPS, that will work also but check the specs for true sine as well.

I'm not sure that you must have a pure sine UPS. Tube amps we are discussing has line transformers,
the effect of non-sine would be increased temperature of the mains transformers, and one
might expect more "hum" in the signal chain. But apart from that nothing bad would happen.
On top of that, most UPS's i have seen will bypass the ups altogether when mains is present.
On the plus side is that an UPS will protect from power glitches as they will continue to supply
mains AC during the glitch period, a time too short for any negative temperature effects.
On top of that, most UPS has a built in filter for spikes and high frequency noise.