Power Conditioning on the Cheap


This is my first post here after a bit of lurking, so please be gentle.  I realize this subject must come up a fair amount and I've read erik_squires blog posts on the subject, but I was hoping to get the community's opinion on the relative merits of a few relatively basic power conditioners.  I've narrowed my list down to a few options at a range of (fairly modest) price points.  From low to high they are:

Furman PST-8D

ifi Power Station

Furman Elite-15 PF I

Shunyata PS10 w/ Venom Defender

Audioquest Niagara 1200

In a perfect world where I didn't have a limited budget I would probably buy something higher up the line from Shunyata, but since we live in a decidedly imperfect world, these are my options, although I would welcome other suggestions that fit within this price range.

I should also probably mention that while I value subjective reports on the sound quality of various products, generally speaking I give more weight to objective measurements or at least arguments based in sound science.  More embarrassingly, I also place a certain amount of value on aesthetics.  Aesthetic taste being inherently subjective, (a debatable point, but for the sake of argument lets just assume that it's true) lets just say that when I lust after completely unobtainable equipment it tends to be from companies like Soulution or Pilium rather than Dan D'Agostino or darTZeel.

incorporeus

@elliottbnewcombjr Are you saying you can identify a problem by looking at voltage?  If so, please explain how.

 

If you monitor the voltage coming in from your distribution panel, you can determine if you have line sags or over voltage.   The range allowed for your line voltage is quite large, so any changes will readily show up on a voltmeter.   What you can't see are short term voltage spikes or HF noise - most DMMs are not fast enough to catch them.

There are two transformers in a Puritan PSM-152 to allow free flowing amperes.
Fused circuit protection, banks of capacitors to remove DC effectively.
Two stage individual shunting inductors that shunt high frequency hash from both the active and neutral to ground, individually on each outlet. While leaving the sinusoidal waveform intact and without impeding current flow.

A highly regarded device, discussed many times in Agon and the one I decided to drop the money on.