How much should a person spend to get a decent power conditioner?

@wisciman99 ignore the nattering nabobs who dismiss any sort of tweak or system accessory. The only thing you can do is try something in your system. Luckily power conditioners are easily available used and also easy to resell. 

A good conditioner will make your system sound more open and effortless, it will add weight and improve dynamics. In general however I haven’t found them to materially change soundstage, which is more a matter of low level noise better addressed via grounding solutions and the like. Rather against expectations I’ve never found conditioners to remove noise or so called grunge, but that’s perhaps as I’ve always had clean power to start with as it sounds like you have too - anyway you can check my system to see the lengths one can go to to work on clean power from the breaker out.

The challenge is that a lot of the inlines and other tweaks like the HFCs or Akikos are a bit hit or miss, and may suit better in a more refined system. If I was in your shoes I’d try a solid Chang, Shunyata or Synergistic box and see how that works for you. Unfortunately these are all $1-2k and up used but they will grow with your system. 

Rarer brand to look out for but work really well include Running Springs Audio and Sound Applications but again these are all expensive. 

Also take extra care plugging power amps into conditioners as not all conditioners will work well and some may limit the amps performance - for example the Chang and some Shunyatas are not a good fit with power amps but the Synergistic, RSA and Sound Apps all work really well with amps as well as sources.

Anyway good luck with your search!

@whart. Glad you appreciate the quotation 😉

I have actually always used two stage power conditioning, a system wide transformer and a dedicated pair of conditioners for sources and power amps.

In my old Santa Monica set up I had a Equitech balanced transformer then conditioners (used to be RSA for the sources and SA on the amps, then moved to SR on both). Frankly I found balanced power to be more trouble than it was worth however so in my current Portland system I have a wall mounted Torus (which is balanced input but normal 110v outputs) and then a pair of SR 12 UEFs, one for sources and one for power amps

I also find that the SR conditioners are very sensitive to footers and the platforms they are on, vibration profoundly and negatively impacts power conditioners. My current preferred arrangement is GPA monaco stands to Marigo platforms, to Marigo footers

The reason not to plug a powe amp int a conditioner is if it is current limiting. Of course they all claim that there will be no ill effects but many people find their power amps sound best plugged straight into the wall. As I noted there are some brands that I’ve found this doesn’t apply to but based on my past experience of never use a Nordost conditioner with powe amps for example, even though I liked them with my sources 

@leotis my concerns with balanced power are based on my experience with a 350lb EquiTech in wall unit installed by the premier studio power technician in the LA area. It was continually popping GFCIs from interference with other household appliances (I actually had to rewire it to bypass the GFCIs in the end), I had to be careful on incompatibility with some of my existing equipment such as the Sound Applications conditioner, and finally the House was unsellable without it removed as the buyer could not deal with non standard outlets. So if you are considering an in wall application bear this in mind. None of these issues affect my current in wall Torus which is balanced in, single ended out which is in my mind the best compromise