High on Thier List, But Low on Yours

Trelja, the only point that I have contention with is the use of lin conditioners. You must take into consideration how well your A/C is regulated by your power company. I am a professional CET and as part of my daily grind, I repair units that have been damaged by insufficient regulation. If your line voltage is to be regulated at 117 VAC, any variance, up or down will degrade the performance of any electrical appliance. It dosen't matter if the appliance is a toaster or a pre-amp. Case in point, my own a/c varies by day, time of day and temperature. Between the hours of 9:00am and 5:00pm the A/C is pretty consistent, but around 5:30, A/C line voltage will drop by as much as 15%. The line conditioners will help combate these irregularities and prolong the life span of your equipment. You might want to reconsider these units, if not for the sonic values, strictly for the power oriented. I'll save my picks on good equipment for another thread. Enjoy!

Oops! two points, I really like AR when matched with big Maggies. thats all.

The PipeDreams are a awful; Truly the worst speaker over $500 I have ever heard (heard in 5 separate rooms)

Good points Retroguy. I recognize the validity of all you say. Just that the power treatment devices I have been around all seemed to take something away from the system. And we audiophiles certainly go out of our way to put that stuff in their. Hmmm. Another audio tradeoff: equipment protection(against surges, spikes, dips, etc.) vs. more pleasure(much of the time). I could make a pretty blue analogy here... That's why I did say that the power regenerators are high on my recommended list. Hopefully offering all the protection you list, without losing some of the magic.

Haven't heard anything that I thought was crappy, just different and didn't care for it. Maybe my hearing isn't as well tuned as some others. Not to change the topic of your thread, but I have heard some recordings that were terrible. I had an Al Stewart Year of the Cat that sound like it was a fifth generation recording on tape... and it was a cd! I did think that sounded crappy, tossed it.