I gave up experimenting with mains conditioners 10 years ago, they can do some good things with noisy digital sources but always lost dynamics and overall preferred without. Moving to a well constructed mains supply can provide real benefits but expensive extensions I’m very very doubtful of
If you want a good mains extension use Olson as they are hard wired and use real sockets
if you can install a seperate CU direct from the incoming mains and feed each fuse to a single socket with over spec cable (eg 6 or 10A) this will reduce impedence and provide very worthwhile gains. I’m a big fan of improving mains but it’s more about avoiding weak earthing and high impedence than filtering
A full solution can be affordable - less than £1k all done £600 on an extension is not a wise investment imo
Yep, pretty much my experience too. I originally bought a couple of
IsoTek isolation transformers, one for power amp's and another for lower current components. Both were/are very well made but neither made any noticeable difference at all.
Then I bought a
PurePower 2000i which is big, heavy and expensive (though the price I paid for mine was less than half the £4,595 that the latest Gold series costs) and its effects, I gradually came to realise, were/are subtly deleterious to dynamics, purity, transparency and imaging. Its cooling fan was noisy too, though I managed to cure that with a factory-supplied mod (installed by my dealer) that lowered the voltage of its power supply and thus the speed of the fans. The unit runs a degree or two higher than with the original psu, but not seriously so.
Component by component, I stopped using it and (with a series of low cost tweaks to other aspects of the system) my system's better for having done so. I (now) use
Bryston amplification and that company advises against power conditioners, though they do make their own quite extensive range of outboard isolation transformers which they claim do enhance dynamic range. They're not available in the UK (perhaps because the importers,
PMC, have a healthy scepticism for such things) but, even if they were, I wouldn't bother with one. If they're so good, they should be optional substitutes for those built into the components as standard.
With a view to selling the
PurePower, I tried to get a replacement set of batteries but it was such a hassle (I couldn't even get a price from the dealer) that eventually I gave up.
I can't claim that, amongst the many available, there isn't a power conditioner out there that does yield benefits, only that I've never heard one that does, either at home or at shows (systems using an
IsoTek isolator never sounded particularly special to my ears). So, if you are contemplating buying a power conditioner or an isolation transformer, try it at home before spending what could well be quite a large sum of money. As far as I'm concerned, they're in the same territory as cables.
Some of them may do what they claim but most, I suspect, don't.