Although power conditioners are not sexy like maybe a pair of Meridian 8000 speakers, they play an integral role in the way a system functions and performs. You could say they make the sexiness of a system that much more sexier. The three most important concepts of today’s high-end power conditioners are clean energy, power management, and remote access.
Think of high-end power conditioners like what reverse osmosis is to water. They capture the electricity and turn it into clean, even, undistorted power just like reverse osmosis turns our water more pure and better to drink. Our regular electrical outlets are filled with noise and uneven power surges that can distort the sound of any audio systems and create interference to any display device. Clean power equals clean sound and video. It’s that simple.
Lets face it. A complete AV control system can take up a lot of power. With today’s best power conditioners, like from PS Audio, every electrical device plugged into it can be monitored and controlled. This means you can see the usage of an entire system and also allocate a certain amount of voltage per device. From an environmental and economical point of view, this added knowledge allows any system to be that much more efficient and controlled.
One of our favorite aspects of a top-notch power conditioner is the remote access. The remote access allows us to see if any devices have come off line. The system sends us an e-mail for notification. Our clients are located worldwide, so if a problem does a occur with their AV system, this give us a jump start. Remotely, we are able to reboot their AV system from any location via the Internet. More recently, we had a device go off line at a client’s apartment in New York City. Before that client even knew there was a problem, it was fixed.
To sum up this post, power conditioners may not be the Ferrari of a system, but they are required to keep your Ferrari of a system fueled properly and running to its most optimal condition. They are important aspects to any AV system, and shouldn’t be over looked.