Power conditioners

I always bring a Furman Power conditioner with my rig, well almost always. What difference without one. Mesa should put them in their amps.

Markedman said:

I always bring a Furman Power conditioner with my rig, well almost always. What difference without one. Mesa should put them in their amps.

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I've been going back and forth on Power conditioner VS conditioner/voltage regulator. I almost pulled the trigger on a Furman PL8 series 2 which I believe would eliminate noise in electrical system but then I was reading the recent thread entitled " it's all in my head" or something like that. I also have the problem of coming back the next day, same settings, same guitar, same speaker ect and getting a different sound. The only thing I'm thinkin I can really do to eliminate THAT problem is a voltage regulator ? Will a power conditioner in any way help with "next day different tone syndrome"? Or is a conditioner/voltage regulator the only answer? Can anyone recommend a quality Conditioner/regulator that will get the job done and set me back as little as possible? I know they ain't cheap but next day tone variance is starting to make crazy(er). Thanks in advance for any help.

If you're using it in different locations all the time then I'd say get the Furman Voltage regulator in it's simplest form (AR-1215). $550

If you're at home or studio only then first test the house voltage at your recepticles and find out if there's big variations happening.
A few volts up or down isn't likely to be heard much, except when the power drags are occurring (like when a large A.C. unit is kicking on the juice).
Listen to the difference when flipping the variac (bold/spongy) on a rectifier, it's a very noticable difference yes, but that's chopping about 30v to the amp!

If your house/building is stable power, then I'd just go with a good quality heavy-duty surge protector strip for $50-$100. IMO

The power (voltage) fluctuates greatly, 108.1 - 134.2, and is constantly going up and down rapidly as proven by a meter that I hook up before the power conditioner. The voltage still goes up and down if the meter is plugged in after the conditioner, but the conditioner makes a huge difference in the amount of hiss. I use a simple Furman PL and the difference in hiss with or without the unit is extremely noticeable, way beyond even considering not using a conditioner. The P.A. had so much hiss without the power conditioner, we turned it off between sets, but the hiss was completely eliminated with a conditioner and you can not tell if the P.A. on. My bassist, after seeing the voltage jumping around and hearing the difference with just the conditioner, has ordered a voltage regulator to go with the conditioner.

Probably a good idea to run the regulator then. That's enough voltage drops/spikes to hear the power dragging, and that's just annoying.

It is not normal for power to fluctuate like that. Most likely the meter is either not designed for measuring AC or is not tracking the voltage well.

The most likely cause if those fluctuations are real is heavy equipment or compressors running on the same branch drawing large rapidly changing currents and causing line drops and spikes. Refrigerators, AC units, and inductive load. Line regulators are designed to work slowly, so they may or may not track these line fluctuations. You should really see if there is a branch (outlet) you can use that does not have this problem.

And try a different AC meter.

I've never had any electronic device fail from the voltage spikes, but you can see the lights do odd things some nights. I have several different meters and this voltage meter I'm using now is correct. Of course when I asked the power company about why it happens, they were only concerned about if I had equipment failure and told me it was normal for the voltage to fluctuate like that. Since the hiss I get varies from place to place, I'm assuming it has more to do with the building than what the power company creates.