Analyzing the power from the outlet

It is entirely possible that you have exposed the pseudo science that many audiophiles thrive on. You are supposed to simply assume that your power needs improvement and then purchase a product to improve it.

A EE friend of mine just shakes his head at the majority of the audiophile power products, but does understand the use of a power regenerator in a county where the power grid is garbage.

My guessis that analysis before and after might yield a change, but it might be difficult to objectively prove an improvement.

Well, I've seen suggestions to validate the outlet voltage is consistently 120 V with a tolerance of +/- 3 V. Assuming the outlet meets that benchmark, that would, I think, obviate the need for a power regenerator. (At least I think that is the function of a regenerator.)

But, as far as the filtering of noise, etc. Does anyone know how to measure the amplitude and frequency of noise without electricuting yourself?

I'm not being facetious. I'm geninuely curious.

On a related note, it's my (limited) understanding that most audio components have a transformer as the first stage from the power input. Doesn't that automatically decouple most of the noise from the power?

There was a thread written here a month ago or so by individuals that are a lot more knowledgeable then myself. I thought they said that there was really no way of evaluating the condition of the power at the outlet or in the line.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

My PS Audio P-10, $3000 used approx. regenerator has a screen showing about 3% distortion and 118.5 volts which it reduces to .1% distortion @ 120.1 V. I can hear the difference and it's worth it to me (I have two.). Because this is a high price to find out, I suggest you borrow one from a friend as I did (they're heavy)-make an appeal here on audiogon- see if you can hear the difference and then ask yourself if it's worth it to you to buy one. Else, I think there is a trial period. While I realize this is a long winded way to say "try it before you buy it...YMMV" it's not at all intuitive otherwise: I live in the Atl. suburbs, a friend in the city has cleaner power! ; a friend in my same neighborhood even has cleaner power (closer to the transformer?). And so, even if you had a cheap, easy way to measure, what would the number mean? You still have to be able to hear a difference (there probably would be some, in any case) and decide if it's significant to you.

This is a device that can be plugged into a dual-trace O-scope, and will display the high freq noise, on your incoming AC(both line to neutral and neutral to ground): (http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/STARINMANUALS/ETA/Manuals/Power%20Probe.pdf) Here's a demo of it's display and the noise on an AC line: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOO89uHEprM) There are three parts to the demo on Youtube. Of course everyone's AC quality varies, depending on what's connected to the their local source(everything operating on your side of the neighborhood's single phase distribution transformer). ie: In your own home; anything digital that's operating is polluting your AC with very high freq noise.