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What's new with power conditioning?

I just moved to a new place and I need some help. My old house had PS Audio ports and I had an electrician run some lines for me and my sound was CLEAN. However, my new place isn't so clean. I can hear the dryer coming through my speakers when I wash. Lucky for me, I only wash once a week.

I took the PS Audio power ports from my old place but for now I just don't have the cash it might take to have a qualified electrician come over and set up my lines.

I looked up PS Audio and wow, they have a bunch of new stuff.

What is out there that will clean my power. I use a tube preamp and SET amp and this probably pulls the most power. The rest of my system is a CD player, turntable and that's it. I might be adding a SACD player.

Any suggestions?
matchstikman
johnjbarlow's avatar
johnjbarlow
175 posts
 
Oh, I get it now. You are sorry I'm a sensitive hypocrite. Apology accepted.
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
I would say dedicated lines are going to cost you less then gear that will be quality enough to cure what your current electrical is sending into your gear.
nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,517 posts
 
Chad, ded. lines are always a good thing, cetainly one of the most cost-effective improvements one can make. But there are two big things they won't fix:

1. They won't improve the AC your utility company is sending you in terms of inaccurate sine waves and fluctuating 120 voltage. And,

2. They can't eliminate noise that gets into the powerline before it reaches your house.

And to Matchstick, for a long time conditioners were all we had. They do their thing using big filtering devices which, by their nature, limit rapid energy transfer between the powerline and your components. This is a problem particularly for amplifiers (which always will suffer a reduction in dynamics) and to some degree to DACs, for reasons I don't yet understand. But used elsewhere, they can help, there's no doubt about that. It's how they do it that's the problem.

Further, conditioners can do absolutely nothing about #1. above. However, regenerators can fix both #1. and #2., and do so without limiting dynamics the way conditioners do, since they eliminate noise through a technique that doesn't choke energy transfer.
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