Whats the difference between a power conditioner and a power strip?
Typically, not much. Most power conditioners are merely power strips on steroids. The first power conditioners were power strips with surge protection and a noise filter. Every variation on that theme is still a power strip at heart and only capable of a moderate degree of protection, some noise reduction, but no isolation from the power utility. There is no reason to spend more than $99 on one of these, although some brands are offered at over $3,000. Generally, they do nothing to regulate the voltage or correct the sine wave. The bigger they are, the more power they consume, drawing power away from your system. A few expensive models add stepped voltage regulation and one even has sine wave correction as well. These are nice features to put on a power conditioner but still dont offer true isolation from the local utility. Our biggest complaint about the expensive conditioners is that many of them crush the dynamics of your audio system to such an extent, they ruin the listening exper
