I have come to the conclusion that it is the connections that determine the quality of AC to the components. That said, I have gone to dedicated lines, quality outlets that tightly grip the plugs, quality plugs that insert into the outlets tightly on both ends. If you must protect your equipment from lightning and power fluctuations, you will find the best protection units are quite expensive. "Power conditioners" usually involve some kind of filter and often degrades the signal. Whether that can be heard or not depends on your system and your ears. Just one person's opinion, of course. I say, go for the dedicated lines, outlets and power cords/plugs first.
Power Conditioner Cheap?
Ive been looking at PureAV and panamax mainly as well as chang. Really dont know which one is better as i believe they all have lifetime warranties and im not sure if levels of cleaning/filtering is a world regulated value or they just make up different stages and levels in different companies. I was comparing a panamax 4300ex against a p31d pureav unit and a chang CLS-3200 mark2 all in similar prices but i think the retail on the pureav unit is the highest. "Filtering levels" are stage 4 on the pureav unit "level 5" on the panamax, and from what i read the chang is simply "fully filtered" no idea where to go or what to do. any input would be great. As for number of outlets i need, im not sure if i should be using switched outlets or not but if i hook up all the units in the room that would be 1 amp, 1 dvd player, 1 HD cable box, 1 CDP so a minimum of 4 outlets I would say. IDEAS????