I am seeing more and more products for cleaning up AC power. It's my understanding that the conversion process to DC (rectification and filtering) should make this unnecessary. Pretty sine waves are fun to look at, but how critical is it to system performance?

It really depends on how effective the power supply design is in the given peice of gear. (Not necessarily price driven either, I've had power line noise contamination problems show up in audiophile preamps at $5K+.) It also has the capability of lowering the noise floor, video and audio, especially where the contamination is aggressive (read in homes that have extensive lighting control systems, etc.) The bad news is that very few of the products on the market have any impact at all. The things that are cheap and easy to filter are generally handled by the gear already. I have only worked with two effective products, the PS Audio Power Plant and the Seakay LineRover. Neither is a $10 strip.


jcmitch

If its a big installtion read a dedicated theater I use rack mounted equipment or rack shelvs for consumer grade gear. I then use a FURMAN or PANAMAX line conditoner. Some of the MONSTER stuff isnt too bad either it seems to be built pretty tough for Monster Cable standards.

I do like the professional conditioners from FURMAN the best though. I did just complete a job using a realitively cheep unit from Numark, it did do a nice job.

VR Audio Systems LLC
Phoenix, Arizona
www.vraudiosystems.com

Try the Richard Grey stuff, not only does it clean up what is plugged directly into it, also everything on the whole circuit, $1500 and up.
Pioneer Elite plasma looks even better now, as well as the Sony big Screen on the other wall.

CB1