Is an isolation transformer better than a power conditioner?

Part of the allure might be how easy a solution these components are to use and install. Last weekend I listened to a Taurus transformer at a friends and have to say that at least on his system it bested the Shunyata (model # ?) by a wide margin. The Taurus was about half the price of the Shunyata. 

@boostedis 

Thanks for your comments.

I have heard this claim of “just different”.. or even about a realization after some time it wasn’t good. But it has always sounded like it was coming from a skeptic… a theoretical assertion… not from the experience of a real audiophile.

Over the last fifty years of being an audiophile it has certainly never happened to me. Differences in sound the sounds of high quality interconnects, cables, and power cords are easy to hear… although it may take a little while to clearly articulate them. Also absolutely reproducible and consistent across components.

However,  fooling around with the stuff that comes with inexpensive equipment, Bilken, Blue Jeans, Monster, and the like can be confusing and difficult to pick out the differences. But good quality purpose built for sound equipment is seldom difficult.

I recently heard a Stromtank power regenerator in a very familiar high end system. It was good to see/hear that it didn't color or change the presentation, just cleaned up the grunge. It is a good unit, though expensive.

The whole system including the active ATC 100 speakers was connect via Stromtank.

With a dedicated AC line I’d be tempted to say "leave it at that," but the balanced power approach some have mentioned here has me intrigued. To those who have experience with it, how would describe its sonic influence compared perhaps to using power (re-)generators or other?

As I previously mentioned, balanced trans. just sort of there, doesn't add any flavor or artifacts like the other pc's I tried. Vs. dedicated lines without pc, larger soundstage, greater image dimensionality and specificity, higher resolving, greater transparency. When I go back to straight out of wall, soundstage and image collapse, pretty bad.

I've also tried Lithium Ion battery packs, nice for lowering noise floor, but dark flavor always sets in over time. Never liked any pc with every tube amp I've owned.