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

First you have to decide what your needs are. Do you want surge protection with some filtering to reduce some extraneous noise from your AC mains and components? This is passive conditioning.
Or do you want a power regenerator which takes the incoming AC from the grid and your service panel and cleans the signal (reducing noise) then regenerates a new sine wave to power your components, (Active power conditioning). These are needed in areas of an unreliable power grid or excess noise from old power lines and transformers, or areas of heavy interference.

The archives are full of threads with recommendarions.

Specifying your budget will help, but it also lends itself to defeating your Thread Title.

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

I'm curious about how best to treat my AC and stay within my budget.

Every power supply/conditioner I have had, across multiple locations/states has yielded improved performance (from lower cost to moderate/higher price points) in each system setting.

I use two passive conditioners for my components since the power in my area is steady at 120V and there are new transformers installed in our neighborhood.
I have a Brickwall with surge protection which does a very good job of filtering noise from components and any stray interference such as RFI. It does not regenerate or regulate power from the grid.

I also have dedicated AC lines from the service panel to the receptacles at my audio setup.
I would recommend running dedicated lines with separate circuit breakers as the first step to reduce noise thru the AC mains.


Very good advice by David.

Here is a list of all the reasons why an audiophile should buy a quality power conditioner:   

Is it necessary for me to relist all those reasons?

Just use a single power outlet unless your power consumption needs exceed the rating of the outlet.

Please help me understand what you mean by 'Power Conditioner'?

There are units with surge suppression and filtration to reduce noise and harmonics on the line.  Then there are units which re-generate the AC voltage. This it the type I use and have noticed quite an improvement in the sonic ability of my system over the filtration/surge suppressor type I had previously.  I do recommend this type.

New or used?  I purchased my PS Audio P5 used and paid about $700 for it.  Well worth it.  It did have a flaw in the display which is common.  But it does not affect the units performance and reliability.  In fact, for the most part the display is off.