Should I also add power conditioner/surge protector to the equipment? Again, does it change anything sonically? If recommended do you look at Shunyata, Panamax etc.
For power cables the thing I’m most insistent on is having them shielded. What good is it to clean up the noise in your AC line with an expensive conditioner when Wifi and Ethernet and HDMI cables are going to induce more noise back into the AC? I don’t think you need to go very expensive and I DIY mine but Amazon also has shielded AC cables as well.
I’ve never felt any of the boutique conditioners were in my budget but I’ve used Furman with SMP/LiFT for a long time. In some locations where I had many very close neighbors I definitely felt it improved the sound quality and made it all smoother and more relaxed to listen to. Any surge protector with series mode protection is a good choice because they all filter at very low frequencies, around 3 kHz.
Panamax is owned by the same parent company as Furman but the Furman feature mix is better IMHO. Both offer a _lot_ of features and buzzwords so important to make sure you know exactly what model has what feature. For Furman, SMP/LiFT and EVS always seem to go together but they do make products with none of those too. If you also want to make sure your voltage is stable regardless of season or HVAC use look for AR as well.
