Power Conditioners
A power or a line conditioner, as most of us know, is an electronic device that smoothes the power fluctuations coming through your AC supply. A power conditioner controls surges and dips and maintains a continuous voltage which is fed to the components whose power is routed through it. They also filter EMIs from power sources and smooth the rhythmic AC power supply in order to provide a constant, surge and noise free power supply to electronic equipment. A power line conditioner’s principle of operation differs from that of a UPS, as it continuously charges the battery and runs the equipment off battery power all the time while a UPS simply passes the source power straight through while the source power is on.
Since the use of a power line conditioner greatly improves the sound quality from your AV system, till date it is a device that is mostly favored by audiophiles who can actually find a considerable difference between the sounds coming from a system that runs on AC and one that runs through a power line conditioner. However, apart from just giving clear sounds, a power line conditioner has many more uses, due to which it should be one of the first things that come to your mind when you think next of adding to your home theater or AV setup.
First and foremost, a power line conditioner greatly improves the output from your system by filtering the noise coming through the AC line and isolating the components of your system from each other. Most power conditioners filter high frequency noise from the AC line while good AV power conditioners also carry out isolation filtering between components in order to give you optimum outputs from your system.
Secondly, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves that we are getting constant voltages and uninterrupted power at our homes; no electricity grid is forever free of voltage fluctuations, outages, surges, spikes and sags. The occasional lightning strike has been known to convert many high end systems into something that even junk yards wouldn’t accept. Your computer and other high tech, high definition electronic equipment is very sensitive to these fluctuations and might conk off any time.
A power conditioner becomes more of a necessity of you use a gas generator since they do not produce ideal sine AC waves. Thus, power conditioners are required with gas generators both for giving ideal power output as well as noise conditioning.
Furman power conditioners are one of the best power conditioners in the market today. Apart from Furman, Monster and Panamax are other good power conditioner brands. Line tamer is another company that is making power conditioners for the home theater market. If you don’t want to spend too much, then you can go for a DIY filtered power conditioner. These are generally cheaper than regular Panamax and Monster power conditioners. However, make sure that you go through home theater and computer power conditioner reviews before spending on any kind of power conditioner.
