AC Power Filter Power Conditioner - WAudio AC Power Purifier with Surge Protector, Black

I think I have never written a review before. If you are on the fence about this product don’t be. The quality is fantastic. This power conditioner and good cables enhance the audio in your system. It is not snake oil! Filtered AC does in fact make an improvement.I would put this up against any conditioner I have seen up to and perhaps beyond the $1000.00 mark.For me it added clarity, widened the stereo field and made the silence pitch black.I ended up buying three of these. One for my headphone setup upstairs and two for my stereo in the living room.This is of great value for the money.I also added an upgraded power cable to connect it to the wall but when compared to the one that comes with this I heard no difference.Highly recommended!!!

I’m going to combine one review for two items, because they are related, and so I don’t have to write two separate reviews: 1) iFi Power Supply 2) WAudio W3900 Power Conditioner... After the usual audiophile tweaks to my mid-low system (Teac CD transport, SMSL DAC, Schiit Freya+, Parasound Power Amp, Focal Chorus), I decided to try some some power supply tweaks—knowing that it could improve sound, or could be snake oil.The iFi power supply arrived first, so before installing this, I played and listened to one of my favorite test tracks, then plugged in the Power Supply to my DAC... Lo and behold, the difference was significant, and I could easily hear that the low end became much more meaty and solid. I was surprised what an improvement there was! I couldn’t tell any high end difference, which was fine, as I feel my system was a bit top heavy (bright) anyways, so this change went in the correct direction.A few days later, the W3900 came in. I listened again to my test track again, then unplugged my entire system from a cheap surge protector, and plugged everything into the conditioner. Surprise: Again, the difference was not subtle. This time, the conditioner effected the sound in a different way. It focused all the sound instrument more coherently, causing a major improvement in imaging. It seemed to do this by clearing out what seemed like some low level music details that was scatttered/floating over the entire sound stage... leaving the music very clean, and focused positioning of the musical instruments within the stage... So both experiments turned out great! Then I decided to test out what a YouTube reviewer said about power conditioners being inherent “current limiters”, and hence will hurt power amplifier performance. So I selectively unplugged my power amp from the conditioner’s “filtered” section, and plugged it into the “unfiltered” section... BOOM, the music went less focused again! So, done, all my components will go through the conditioner’s filtered outlets. I’m a happy camper.My conclusion is that power supply tweaks are NOT snake oil with the following caveats: 1) That your speakers or room acoustics are not max’ed out—and still have the extra capacity to reveal any improvement tweaks. For instance, if your room acoustics are so bad that even if you improve real sound quality, the room has no capacity to reveal the improvement... then no matter how real the sound improvement you achieve, it will not show up in a room with bad acoustics. (In my experience, the two most important and significant sound tweaks are speak placement, and room acoustic treatments. After you get these two items settled, then go on to the smaller tweaks like cables, power supply, etc. 2) The second circumstance when a power supply tweak won’t show is if your system is super high-end and already optimized to the max. In this case, a small change in power supply will have no noticeable effect, and may even degrade the sound somewhat.... Other than these two conditions, I think you will have great results and fun playing with these power supply tweaks!

Updated 8-31-2019: The parts quality on these filters is quite variable. The case itself, as mentioned in my original posting, is very solid and is perhaps the best part of the filter. The filter circuit itself looks, to my experienced eye, to be well and cleanly built. The noise filter circuit does its job very well for the price and in that sense it is a good value. The power sockets are the weakest link. The sockets do not grip very tightly so heavy cables may not sit firmly and can pull loose just from their own weight pulling at an angle. I have had one of the power LED lights burn out, though the filter still works. Again, for the money they can make a difference. I will continue the update at the end of the original posting below:===============================I have a small home studio with some top quality gear. While everything sounded competent, I was not getting that "audiophile thrill".Way back in the Jurassic period, I ran with some Golden Ear folks and I developed and sold some power filters for them. We discovered that putting each piece of gear on its own filter yielded the best results. The power supplies in most equipment will cross contaminate each other, sometimes not much, sometimes quite a bit. Unfortunately, it is quite expensive for me to produce those filters these days.I decided to experiment with these filters, based upon some user feedback from credible sources. I purchased three of them initially, One on the power amp for the studio monitors, one on the D/A converter and one on the computer interface. What were the results?I just ordered another batch of three filters.Audiophile Alert: The average person could add one filter to their system and possibly be quite happy, depending upon your ears and the quality of the equipment and depending upon how "dirty" the power is at your location. Some people may not notice anything.For the hyper sensitive audiophiles out there, adding three filters to my system has elevated the quality of the sound in one of the most important (to me) areas. Ear fatigue. Everything sounds cleaner, a more effortless presentation. Fine details are more apparent. We are talking that last 10% that audiophiles crave. Your mileage may vary, but I just bought another three filters to use on the recording side of the chain. Purchasing six filters adds up to about $1000 by the time you are done. That is less than half the cost of one of my pieces of equipment and it improves the performance of all of them. I prefer to think of it as a $170 upgrade to each piece of equipment. I could not build my own filters for that cost and the build quality of the case would not be as solid. Totally worth it to my ears, but I understand that most people would prefer to just try one filter and leave it at that. :)==========================So, now we are at the end of the original posting. These filters inspired me to re-design my original filters, and I have begun removing the internal parts and using the excellent case as a host for my own filters. It is very labor intensive and quite expensive from a parts perspective, but for my uses it is worth it. So, are the original Chinese filters still worth it? I think so at the price. Are my own filters in these cases better for audio quality, yes indeed, however if I were to sell them, I would need to charge at least $800 each. There would be a very limited audience for this kind of extreme audiophile type of filter. So, for $179 each, or whatever the current price is for the standard Chinese filter, I still think it is a good value as long as the circuit quality or other parts quality do not suddenly decrease..... You never really know which factory is building any particular batch of filters.

So far so good does what it’s supposed to. Think it actually did quiet things down a little bit too as far as reducing noise floor.

I got this because i was having a terrible hum with my guitar amplifiers. I was running three guitar amplifiers plugged through my pedal board. It took me awhile to figure it out. This AC power filter conditioner was not the ultimate solution to my problem. The solution to my problem was 3 mono passive isolation boxes in the audio lines. But this unit is a very good unit and I am glad I added it to my set up, because running all of the equipment into one electrical outlet through this heavy duty power strip did seem to help some in other ways. This thing is built like a tank.