Hawkeye, regrettably, most power conditioners are not worth owning because
1) they do not actually condition the AC,
2) they often times inject their own noise,
3) they often times rob the amplifier of the juice required to reproduce dynamic and/or complex passages thereby rendering the presentation fairly lifeless, lacking dynamics, and
4) most line conditioners do nothing to filter the bi-directional digital noise induced by every digital component such as a DAC or CDP so if your line conditioner is not dedicated and you have analog and digital components plugged into the same line conditioner, chances are excellent the line conditioner is inducing new digital noise into your analog components.
Some important things to note when considering line conditioning:
1) It's a bit like finding a needle in a haystack much for the reasons listed above.
2) Stay away from the most popular brand names. Regrettably, these are some of the worst offenders at doing nothing, injecting their own noise, robbers amps of the juice they need, or spreading digital noise around like a virus.
3) Seek a passive line conditioner that does not draw current to itself.
4) Seek a dedicated line conditioner that allows you to take full advantage of dedicated circuits/lines.
5) Seek a line conditioner that filters bi-directional digital noise. Digital noise is a nasty that will make its way back to the service panel and then into other circuits/lines and then spread into other components, especially those not properly conditioned.
6) One that actually conditions the AC. Believe it or not, this is rare.
Also, keep in mind that dedicated circuits/lines do nothing to condition the dirty AC coming in from the street. Dedicated lines serve exactly 2 purposes. 1) help keep noise from household appliances and dimmers from entering the component and 2) help ensure that high-current amplifiers have the juice required for dynamic and/or complex passages. Even sharing a 26 watt preamp on a line with a high-current drawing amp is just enough to suck the life out of the amp's performance.
Following these guidelines above will limit your selection down to about 2 or 3 manufacturers. But you will find it well worth your investment as you will soon discover that once you've discovered proper line conditioning, your tolerance for listening to any system that lacks it is down to about 10 minutes before ear fatigue sets in.
-IMO
