power conditioner

[s dog]

I was looking around at the hifi shop saturday and seen a monster power conditioner , the saleman said it would help my tv picture look a lot better and my speakers sound better, I find that hard to believe so i will ask you guys who know more than me, it cost $800.00 i will say the thing looked pretty cool with all the flashing numbers on the front panel, but then that dont give me a better picture and sound,

[Rycher]

Dude, you just opened up a whole big can of worms on this subject. I'd suggest you just search the forum on this subject as there are a whole bunch of theads on Monster, and line conditioners in general.

[malibushirl]

Look into a product from Brickwall. Do your own research, but when you do you will learn that Monster(any surge protector) power supplys/surge protectors are designed to fail when they reach a certain load.

[woodman]

I was looking around at the hifi shop saturday and seen a monster power conditioner , the saleman said it would help my tv picture look a lot better and my speakers sound better, I find that hard to believe so i will ask you guys who know more than me, it cost $800.00 i will say the thing looked pretty cool with all the flashing numbers on the front panel, but then that dont give me a better picture and sound,

Your skepticism is well founded Mr. Dog ... the salesman was giving you "pie-in-the-sky"
to put it mildly. The plain, unvarnished truth of the matter is that a line conditioner - no matter how sophisticated it might appear to be, and no matter what its cost, stands very little chance if indeed any chance at all to living up to the salesman's promise. Just cannot happen. The best that such a device can do is to remove spurious "noise" from the A-C power line, but more often than not the power supply of the entertainment component being fed with said power would've cleaned up that noise all by itself - rendering the job done by the "conditioner" irrelevant overkill.

In the seldom existing cases where the A-C power line is so severely contaminated that the device being supplied with the power is unable to cope with it, a "line conditioner" would be helpful. But those conditions are extremely rare, and when they are encountered a suitable "conditioner" to help deal with it should not cost any $800 ... 1/2 that much would be more like it. It's not rocket science.

Bottom line: there are many dubious products to be found in the marketplace ... especially in so-called "HiFi shops". Tread carefully in those types of places, or better yet avoid them altogether. You'll be way ahead of the game.

Hope this helps you

P.S. You'll probably be fed opposing viewpoints to what I've just told you. Ignore them. Those people simply don't KNOW anything at all about electronics ... all they have to go by are the things they hear for themselves in sighted listening "tests" which are totally worthless since the human mind can conjure up any sort of "evidence" anyone wants to experience.

[s dog]

Your skepticism is well founded Mr. Dog ... the salesman was giving you "pie-in-the-sky"
to put it mildly. The plain, unvarnished truth of the matter is that a line conditioner - no matter how sophisticated it might appear to be, and no matter what its cost, stands very little chance if indeed any chance at all to living up to the salesman's promise. Just cannot happen. The best that such a device can do is to remove spurious "noise" from the A-C power line, but more often than not the power supply of the entertainment component being fed with said power would've cleaned up that noise all by itself - rendering the job done by the "conditioner" irrelevant overkill.

In the seldom existing cases where the A-C power line is so severely contaminated that the device being supplied with the power is unable to cope with it, a "line conditioner" would be helpful. But those conditions are extremely rare, and when they are encountered a suitable "conditioner" to help deal with it should not cost any $800 ... 1/2 that much would be more like it. It's not rocket science.

Bottom line: there are many dubious products to be found in the marketplace ... especially in so-called "HiFi shops". Tread carefully in those types of places, or better yet avoid them altogether. You'll be way ahead of the game.

Hope this helps you

P.S. You'll probably be fed opposing viewpoints to what I've just told you. Ignore them. Those people simply don't KNOW anything at all about electronics ... all they have to go by are the things they hear for themselves in sighted listening "tests" which are totally worthless since the human mind can conjure up any sort of "evidence" anyone wants to experience. I had a feeling thats what you guys would say ,I will keep my money in my pocket, thank you for the warning

[Smokey]

P.S. You'll probably be fed opposing viewpoints to what I've just told you. Ignore them. Those people simply don't KNOW anything at all about electronics ... all they have to go by are the things they hear for themselves in sighted listening "tests" which are totally worthless since the human mind can conjure up any sort of "evidence" anyone wants to experience.

It is always fun watching woodman in action...debunking audio myths.

Long Live Woodman :D

[eisforelectronic]

meters and flashing lights are always cool....

[Rycher]

As many people as there are telling you that something just "isin't" or "cannot be", there will always be the same number of people telling you that "it can be" and that"it is". There are always 2 sides to every story and no one can tell you that their side is correct. Do the research on line conditioners, and your best bet is to talk to people who actually own them and have them in their setup. These people will give you the best advice on weather they are good investments or not.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

In response to Rycher statement, and as a owner of a power conditioner, in some cases it does help. I would listen to the advice of wise Woodman though. In my situation I had terrible power quality problem. Sags, surges, line noise, line interference you name it, I had it. The sound, and picture quality suffered greatly because of this. After installing the power conditioner, the picture quality did improve greatly, and so did the sound quality.

On the flip side, I had a power conditioner hooked at the electrical box in my mixing/screening room. When I disconnected it, it made no difference whatsoever. It did however protect my equipment against two major power surges, and it DID NOT self destruct in the process.

If you have problems with the quality of the power, and you know that it affects your components performance, get a power conditioner. If you think it will improve your system, and you are not having any power problems, it's a complete waste of money. If you want to protect your system from surges, get a good quality surge protector that has a protection policy. Don't bother with Monster products, its a waste of money.

[Rycher]

In response to above:

I'm a firm believer in power conditioning, I own conditioners from ADCOM, PANAMAX, and Monster. They have all improved on one point or other in my systems. Of the 3 units, the MONSTER has performed the best - in filtering noise from TV signal, noise from audio circuits, and on surge protection (I get frequent power outages and spikes in the stormy season, like now). My system looks and sounds beautifully with my line conditioner (monster). But if I remove it from my system, the noise returns. It's not a huge problem, but still a problem.

I worded my response in the previous post because it has been my experience that if you ask about line conditioners on this forum, you will generally invite arguments from several other forumers. Whether their points are to be valid or not, people feel strongly about these "magic boxes". Some swear by them, others would rather beat you till your dead with their opinion. It was only my intention to just "warn" him of any possible rebuttles.

[PAT.P]

I was looking around at the hifi shop saturday and seen a monster power conditioner , the saleman said it would help my tv picture look a lot better and my speakers sound better, I find that hard to believe so i will ask you guys who know more than me, it cost $800.00 i will say the thing looked pretty cool with all the flashing numbers on the front panel, but then that dont give me a better picture and sound,
Just get a good power surges bar with the most joule 2000 and up ! Save your money!Pat.P :)