PS Power Plant or Alan Maher PE's?

Artemus, it's not a great situation you're in, but what can you do? ;-) You have an all solid state system, so in theory, it shouldn't hurt anything to leave it "always on"; all of it, unless it's drawing too much current at idle, but I bet it's roughly two 100W lightbulb's worth for the whole system.

I never got that much into the details of UPS's, not even with my computers, because frankly I haven't had to. So your best source for information is the manufacturer. The trick is knowing what questions to ask;-)

I would first explain that you have an expensive audio system which you'd prefer to leave "always on." That you'd like protection from ordinary surges, but that your real problem is from momentary power outages; specifically the damage that quick power turn on can cause to equipment which hasn't had a chance to fully shut down before restart. And do they have units which address that issue; meaning units which inject full power INSTANTLY so your equipment remains on, whether idling or in use, as if nothing happened? And of course, would there be any affect on sonics, especially when the unit was just in 'standby'?

I wish I could say more, but life is all about asking the right questions, so maybe that will get you started . . .

Neil
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Nsgarch. thanks for your reply. I am 100% with you in the importance of asking the right questions.
I may speak to the power company as well since I think this situation is somewhat ridiculous. Yes, I live in the mountains, but I live in a town of about 50k and my house is only 13 yrs old. Fortunately i know and am about to do a job for the person who schedules new service installation for the power co. Maybe I'll ask him about it. Unfortunately the pole which feeds my home is covered with vines which can't be good and may be a large part of the problem. Anyway, thanks for the heads.

I spoke to couple of techs about using a UPS. Multiple problems here: First of all they were designed for computers, not sensitive audio equipment. Secondly, most UPS's can't handle the draw of some big amps. I know that even the UPS for my server was not big enough to handle a pair of servers and this was a fairly hefty UPS.
The batteries in them are expensive. Third and final note, when I was really drawing on my UPS, the current wasn't quite up to "par". It is designed to allow for proper power down of a system, not to continue running it. I'd bet that running a turntable or cd off of a UPS in protection mode will go at lower rpms?

Elvick, I don'tknow what UPS equipment you were using, though I certainly am aware they had (past tense;-) certain shortcomings with respect to AV systems. But times have changed. APC (and probably others) have entered the AV market with products like these http://www.apc.com/products/apcav/index.cfm

Sorry but dedicated circuits aren't the be all end all 80-90% of the way there. This is a big misconception that if you use dedicated circuits your power / noise problems are fixed. It does NOTHING to reduce inline noise whatsoever it simply reduces a bit of ringing on that circuit, that's IT. Alot of confusion about dedicated circuits. I use a combination of both Alan Maher's designs, an isolation transformer and a Power plant on my source equipment. Alan has different designs for different issues. The PE reduces noise at a certain bandwidth but also provides power factor correction for individual pieces of equipment on the circuit. Also if you were using a Double-Conversion UPS these act similarly to the Power Plant Premier although not as robust. I have tried both. Power regenerators do wonders for digital equipment which is extremely sensitive to noise and absolutely critical to have a solid power system. A dedicated circuit and Monster power strip won't cut it guys.