Advice needed on power cables, wall warts, conditioning, electrical outlet

I swapped my power Furman Reference Power Conditioner out for Pangea Premier power strips, and I found it was a significant improvement in sound.

Power conditioners are a tricky thing.  They help with hum, but can hurt dynamics... and it very dependent on the type of gear and power you have.   Obviously anything with switch-mode power will likely need more conditioning and isolation.   I'm strictly class A / AB.  

Anyway, if you are willing to live without surge protection, I'd suggest taking a listen to your system without the power conditioning.  I think it does more harm than good 70% of the time and it will free up some rack space too!

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Wow!  I am extremely grateful for all of the awesome and practical advice.  Very, very helpful indeed.

Thank you all so much for this Masterclass!

Have a great rest of your weekend.

You can't  go much wrong with Audioquest thunder, X3, and Z3 power cords. Own all three and I'm happy. Also Audioquest Edison receptacle is very nice, grips like a gorilla. 20 amp dedicated circuit Here, run myself, lots saved. All plugged into Audioquest 1200 and the Furman pst-8. Both designed by the same guy. 

I did this experiment:

1. borrowed very high end power cords - significant difference - but not as much as spending the $10K on the pre, the amp, or anything else

2. installed isolation transformer to run separate outlets at 20% of above cost

3. plugged factory power cords into isolated outlets - sounded better than expensive cords into normal outlets (1)

4. plugged expensive cords into isolated outlets - no different than (3).

Experiment proved that in my case, an isolation transformer worked better than expensive power cords, for much less money, and expensive power cords brought NO improvement after the isolation transformer cleaned up the power.

For context, I live half a mile from the nearest commercial user, five miles from the nearest industrial user.

This experiment contradicts the strong opinions of our resident armchair "experts". Use the information as you see fit.

Good luck.

No on Rhodium outlets, the Acme Audio 20 amp silver outlet is much better than Rhodium anything. Silver has the lowest resistance and the 20A grips like hospital grade for much less. I'm not a fan of Furman, Audioquest is much better. What I've learned is all connectors are the weakest link, so get the best for everything including interconnects and power cords. Remember solid silver has the lowest resistance/impedance.