Power Conditioning on the Cheap

@lanx0003 

"the cost might not be as affordable as you think...If extensive work is needed to run wires in your home, the project could cost as much as a few thousand dollars."

I agree, everyone's situation is different.  I was fortunate to have commissioned the house construction so I was able to predetermine power distribution and other factors.  Having a basement helps with wire routing and upgrades also.  Some people can only resort to aftermarket products to improve their power so we all do the best we can.  Other than surge protection, it seems many of these products only "clean up" electrical noise if there is a problem to begin with.  So many factors can affect that and I am fortunate to live in an area with underground electric lines and to have dedicated lines and really no power noise issues whatsoever.  I was not this fortunate at all of my former living arrangements.  I currently use an Isoclean 60A3 II Power Conditioner on my front end components and nothing on my amps and preamp - all run from dedicated 20A lines and it works/sounds great.  I am not sure how much benefit the Isoclean provides (if any) but it doesn't seem to hurt and it gives me 6 outlets to run my digital gear from.

FWIW, I’ve tried and researched a number of solutions... even opening them up (or looking at photos of various internals) to see what they’re made of. I don’t have any insane demands from a home theater perspective, Marantz pre-pro, Rotel amp, phono stage, turntable, BD player, sub, and Martin Logans. The APC H10 (which I have used with past incarnations of my home theater) has been an absolute champ. For a shade over $200, it’s feels like an absolute steal. I’ve cracked open alternatives in a similar (and sometimes considerably higher) price range and laughed at the wool companies like Furman are pulling over people’s eyes thanks in part to the fancy chassis and LED displays. One Furman unit I bought (and subsequently returned) was costlier than this particular APC and the chassis was barren and the contents looked like little more than a budget surge strip inside. The H10 may not be much of a looker on the outside, but it’s got it where it counts. https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-AV-1kVA-H-Type-Power-Conditioner-120V/P-H10

Furman makes a lot of units at different price points. The key features that step them up from just a couple of MOV’s in a box:

• LiFT
• SMP

If they don't have this you are right, they are really basic.

I’ll add APC (H15) to your list for consideration.
 

I got mine used. It’s a long story, suffices to say it save my previous pre/pro at a rental w/“ISSUEs” even a dedicated 20A wasn’t enough.  

On the cheap you can get a nice Topaz, Xentek, ECA, MGE, Daitron, Elgar, etc. extreme/ultra isolation transformer, then just pop a nice passive power strip or two into the duplex. You can get a 0.005 pF 120v 1 KvA Topaz model on eBay fright now for a little over $200, but it needs a good cleaning (I'd use 91% or higher isopropyl alcohol or De-Oxit), which may mean a new duplex as cleaning in there can be a son of a gun. Just something extra to consider.

These Ultra/Extreme isolation transformers massively reduce noise, more than power conditioners and regenerators and such that cost over $10,000. There's a large thread about them on HeadFi, and the original poster measured common mode noise attenuation of over 150 dB at a pretty wide frequency range (up to roughly 9 kHz, 140 dB up to over 1MHz and transverse/normal mode mode attenuation of up to 65 dB) on a common model (not even one of the super low pF models).

Make sure you get one with voltage in and out that's compatible with your house and equipment (120v, 240v or one that can do both). I accidentally bought one about 6 years ago that didn't have the voltages listed and in my then naivete tried to make it work but it was 240-250v only.

These units weigh 40-60 pounds though and are shielded like a tank, so be careful.

From what I can recall Xentek and Elgar have models with the lowest listed capacitance out of all of them (0.00001 pF models exist), but they are super rare to see. Topaz has some slightly more common models at 0.0005 pF. ECA doesn't list their capacitance, but it's under the Extreme nomenclature that Xentek uses (most of these transformers use the Ultra naming). The nice thing about ECA's is that is comes (at least my two have) with balanced wiring on the output duplex and has a capacitor wired into the duplex as well (the capacitor on the transformer that I added a new outlet to was a 7uF 250v 50-60Hz polypropelyene film capacitor from Aerovox). I actually want to see if I could add an even nicer capacitor to it but my capacitor knowlege is limited so I don't know what to replace it with aside from one with the same rating and 7uF capacitors are rare today.