How much should a person spend to get a decent power conditioner?

I am wondering about the possibility of positively affecting the sound stage. My power company is notorious for surges and outages so it’s not just aurally motivated, but protective as well. I am curious, if it’s all snake oil, why would people invest thousands of dollars for conditioners and power cables?

People invest thousands in conditioners and power cables because of their audiophile nervosa/insecurities and placebo effect. They also have more $$$$ than they know how to spend. First World problems. Manufacturers take advantage of this fact. If power conditioners really make such a big difference, why do companies like Parasound not produce any?

I’m not saying they can’t make a small improvement in a home with noisy AC, but most noise is component induced --from noisy transformers or less than ideal grounding schemes. Incoming AC is rarely the true culprit.

If you’re most concerned with surge protection, get a Brick Wall:

https://www.brickwall.com/pages/the-worlds-best-surge-protectors

These don’t rely on MOVs and will protect as well as any four figure "conditioner."

Thanks, helo.  I'm sure I will get varying opinions, but I am going to seriously investigate Brickwall unit.  I did  not see any prices in the link, maybe I just missed them.

On a complete sidebar, a helomech sold me my motorcycle. You don’t happen to live in beautiful Cenla do you?

@helomech- I believe the brick wall technology was developed by Zero Surge out of Frenchtown NJ, who sell their own units, from two outlet jobs to industrial sized panels. 

First you have to decide what your needs are. Do you want surge protection with some filtering to reduce some extraneous noise from your AC mains and components? This is passive conditioning.
Or do you want a power regenerator which takes the incoming AC from the grid and your service panel and cleans the signal (reducing noise) then regenerates a new sine wave to power your components, (Active power conditioning). These are needed in areas of an unreliable power grid or excess noise from old power lines and transformers, or areas of heavy interference.

The archives are full of threads with recommendarions.