1. Why do I need ESP power cords versus using a line conditioner? 

ESP power cords solves two causes of audible distortions that no other power conditioning products address; 1) phase distortion, and 2) slow current delivery speed.  Phase distortion is timing errors that occur between different frequencies.  Current delivery speed is how quickly current can flow to your gear.  Taken together, these issues cause audible distortions such as slow, bloated bass response, dynamic compression, harshness in the upper mid-range, loss of clarity and harmonic integrity, collapsed imaging (boxy sound), and frequency anomalies including over-emphasis or suck-outs.  No ‘line conditioner’ or ‘power regenerator’ addresses these issues.  Some of these devices actually make matters worse by adding transformers and capacitors in the circuit.

ESP power components’ patented cordage geometry eliminates the cause of these audible distortions.  You get extended, punchy yet articulate bass response.  Midrange clarity is enhanced  - you can hear into the music.  Transients are cleaner and fatigue-causing harshness is eliminated.   Instruments now ‘sing’ from a quieter background with broadened harmonic pallet, and sustains are no longer truncated.  The sound quality improvements can best be summed by the word ‘wholesale’ and are noticeable through the entire frequency range.  In many cases, they are comparable in magnitude to replacing the component.

ESP power components are designed to be the ‘weakest link’ in the circuit.  This relationship has been determined through our 13-years of product development and real-world experience.  The filtering effect is by design extremely consistent, no matter what a/c mains and audio components ESP power cords are used with.

3. Which component will benefit most from using ESP power cords?

Customers who initially purchase a single power cord usually choose to attach it to the power amplifier. 'Power amplifier' includes a receiver or integrated amplifier, seperate power amplifier, and powered speakers and sub-woofers. Often one will experience the greatest incremental improvement by using our power cords on the power amplification components because power amplifiers typically suffer most from the effects of being constrained by power cords that cannot adequately supply the required speed and quantity of current.

There's a good arguement for the first application being the source component such as a CD or DVD player. The reason is that the quality of one's system is limited by the quality of the source signal. There's a saying "distortion begets distortion" meaning distortion from the source component is amplified by downstream components.

Best performance is achieved when all system components in the chain are equiped with ESP power cords. If you cannot equip each individual component with its own power cord, consider purchasing a power distributor. Because every plugged-in component experiences an incremental improvement, purchase of a power distributor offers the greatest performance value.