HD Krazie said:
I have a $20.00 monster cable power strip. My home theater system is worth $3,000. Should I expect to see an improvement in audio & video performance if I purchase their pricey power conditioners?
Performance?
No.
A line conditioner serves the purpose of removing EMF RFI noise. That's it. Nothing else.
If you are one of the fortunate few that has absolutely no EMF RFI noise, you will not notice one bit of improvement. For most people their equipment was appropriately designed for real world usage, and the equipment is suppressing the noise, so they will not hear/see any improvement. For the rest of the world, the improvement will be a removal of the hum, whine, buzz etc that should not be present in the audio signal, and the flash and distortion in visual signals. That is it. The music will not be louder, the TV color will not be brighter.
Since most "better" surge suppressors have a built in line conditioner, I strongly suggest people buy the combo unit.
Rat Shack has a unit for about $55 and I believe it includes staged turn on and turn off.
Was at Office Max the other night. Their Belkin products were $30 to $50, depending upon the number of outlets, and offered 60db of noise suppression, but did not feature staged turn on/off.
Staged turn on and turn off will power up the DVD and TV before the Receiver so that the transient noise of the DVD and TV being powered up is not amplified by the Receiver. Conversely the Receiver is powered off first for the same reason.
Remember, there seldom is a need to spend big $.
