Rick - really good question and I think you'll get a lot of different opinions. In my situation I bought a TrippLight Hospital grade 500 watt iso tranny per Steve's suggestion in one of his articles. I will change out the attached AC cord on the tranny (when it is out of warranty). My house is the only house in my area off of the incoming PGE transformer, which was replaced at the same time we re-modeled and I had the two dedicated circuits for the audio added. I would love to have a PS Audio regenerator, but that's a lot of $$$ and I would rather spend the money elsewhere. The company I bought my power cords from also sells them with an open end for replacing existing AC cables. Can't wait to see the other replys. Happy listening, Chris.

Personally I'm one of the few people who had issues with the Tripplite isolation transformers and no longer have any in operation, they sit unplugged in a storage unit. The unterminated cord option seems a good one if you want to open the unit and desolder and solder. I also have used very successfully adaptors that creat an IEC inlet (snip off the old plug and connect the bare wires to the one end, the other end is an IEC inlet). Got these from both Mouse Electronics and ebay.

 This subject isn't so much the can of worms that it seems. I break it down into things like quality of incoming power, system needs, and how much you can actually do about it on your budget. I have been lucky in the past having one or two houses where the power was excellent. And I have experienced the rest as well. My present home was built in the 30's, and there was considerable effort, all the way from getting the city to replace the old transformer AND power lines to my home and surrounding homes on that circuit, to rewiring most of the house. That included taking the existing power ground to the water well casing, and replacing the old circuit box. Even after all of that, the PS Audio regenerator measured 3.4% THD incoming. sheesh. The PS Audio unit died a slow death, and I replaced it years ago with an isolation transformer from BPT power. The trick with this transformer is that it produces a balanced output, and that killls common mode noise.Then it sports a separate secondary winding for each of it's six output windings, a good way to isolate  one component group from another. I wouldn't have it any other way. Your situation could well be different than mine, and the extent that you go through to get things right (if they aren't already) will vary by need itself.

Interesting you like the Uptone USB Regen that much. I've been researching feedback from people using it with the same DAC I have (Yggdrasil) and the conclusion is not clear whether it is a worthy addition. I guess it is inexpensive enough to try it anyway ... Do you use a LPS or the stock PSU?

You should patch in a power cord on that Marshall!

What kind of Strat MM?  I have been concentrating on two of mine: a Custom Shop Classic Stratocaster, and a Warmoth parts caster that has a black limba body, a Wenge neck and fingerboard, two Cool Rails and a Hot Rail that are coil tapped, and no tone controls, just three volume controls. Tone!

That's cool, I think we can talk about what we want to now and then.

Those are some nice guitars you are sporting. Bet they do well with blues.

I've only ever had a small solid state Marshall which was a nice all around amp but I gave it away to a friend who uses it to perform and record his delay and looped trumpet in a duo called WD-41. I've been using a Fender Bassman TV Fifteen which is a fantastic amp which really surprised me as I love tubed amps and this has a tubed preamp and a digital output. It's one heavy Mofo though. . . I also use an old Fender MusicMaster bass amp that has been rebuilt and is light . . . nice amp for most of my purposes, and another digital amp that surprises me, the Jazzmaster Ultralight SE (mine is a prototype that only has one channel, a clean one, not a second distortion channel.) I don't have problems with tone at the amps. I usually roll treble way down every place I can, that's just me, I like the old dark tones that early guitars had. I like a basic thick jazz tone.

Strats are awesome. . . I have two more I need to dig out: a mahogany Deluxe with Cobalt pickups, and a Billy Corgan with his stacked hum buckers. All my Strats have the same neck specs as far as flatness and curve, which helps.

Happy playin'!

Nice. One of my Troy Post (luthier) "Wolf" copy guitars has a Gibson neck profile, and I have a Les Paul Studio. . . I can play these and enjoy them (the "Wolf" has some really great pickups for Jazz and this my most "jazz" guitar) but I prefer the Fender neck, just most used to it. I have a Telecaster ('72 Thinline reissue) but I just don't play it often--too many guitars--but it plays like butter, the easiest playing guitar I have, closely followed by the Warmoth Strat. I also have a '59 Thinskin Reissue Jazzmaster that is a fantastic guitar--same modern neck specs as my Strats. Harder to play than the Strats, but a great sound . . . and versatile (love the two circuits).

You should try a Tele, they can be addicting.

Ok now that you guys hacked or should I say "shredded" my thread all into pieces.....lol. Have you heard of Suhr Guitars?  John Suhr was head of Fenders custom shop for many years until he decided to start making his own guitars. Based in California, he makes amazing guitars with beautiful wood species and the best part is the tone. He has known for years that a scatter wound pickup was much better sounding than machine wound but were always inconsistent. That's why some old fenders sound great and others not so. So he has taken this theory into practice but some how has figured out how to keep it consistent so every pickup he makes is amazing. Anyway I currently have 2 of his guitars, one is a Strat version and the other is a Tele version. I know everyone loves the old vintage guitars but I'm very happy with newer custom Suhr stuff!
Rick

Just looked those up on the web.
Beautiful work.