wrote in message ...
A number of friends and relatives have flat-screen TV's they've bought in
the last couple of years, along with consumer-grade audio systems, AND they
have those Monster (brand) power conditioners. You know Monster-they're
the folks that charge $100 for a 3-ft. length of wire.

Anyway, places such as Ultimate Electronics and Circuit City are pushing
these devices, usually those made by Monster.

Lately, I noticed APC was advertising their power conditioners in a
consumer electronics/computer magazine.

I've got a lot of high-end audio and video equipment I've been using for
many years, in a variety of cities, and I DON'T have a power conditioner;
heck, I don't even have any surge suppressors! I've never had a problem
with most of my gear--at least, not problems that could be attributed to
power fluctuations.

Question is: are these things really worthwhile or necessary?

Many people have very strong opinions on these, and on some of the audio
groups, questions like this have resulted in flame wars of epic proportions
!

FWIW, based on many years at the service end of the business, I don't
believe that the fitting of such devices will result in any difference in
reproduction quality of either audio or a TV picture, that any reasonably
sane person could actually discern with any repeatability. That said, I have
absolutely no problem at all with advising owners of any electronic
equipment that is line powered, that they will do no harm by powering it via
a halfway decent quality surge arrester plug or strip. Whilst most modern
electronic equipment has at least a degree of front-end filtering and surge
suppression, it never hurts to employ the 'belt and braces' approach, and
deal with line-borne transients and interference, before they ever have a
chance to get into your equipment in the first place.

So, necessary ? In most cases not. Worthwhile ? A not too expensive one
might just pay for itself the first time that you have a thunderstorm in the
vicinity ...

Arfa