I agree on #4, no power conditioners.@ramtubesNot all power conditioners are the same!! However most offered to high end audio seem to be so much junk. There are some that have no series chokes at all, but still are able to provide a pure sine wave at full power, which can be quite a lot.
They cannot fix a difficiency in an amplifier's design. The resistance of the series chokes adds to the resistances in the primary circuit. They add yet another power cord and socket,more resistance. Here we are trying to lower the resistance in the primary and then go and add perhaps more than we have subtracted.
Do any power conditioners give their effective series resistance?
You might want to take a look at some of the Elgar power conditioners like the 3006 series and you will see what I mean.