Power direct from the wall, or Power Conditioner?

[David A]

this is exactly what I mean. The 18KW is what the Niagara 5000/7000 can deliver for some ms, this is surely a very extreme condition that you will not have in normal use. Instead of 18KW I should better say it can deliver 230V/80A instead of the 230V/10A.
As you said it is all about the transients. It would be interesting to know the max. ampere a Devialet can take...

All this talk about a conditioner being able to supply high currents suggests that a straight connection to a power point can’t supply that kind of current. It would be interesting to see where that theory came from.

Well, an amplifier can't always supply the power a speaker needs with what it can draw from the power point which is why amplifiers have capacitors for power storage so they can deliver  more power to the speakers than they're capable of drawing from the power point in order to meet peak demand. If the amp is connected directly to the power point and it's drawing on its power storage reserves, then it follows that the power point is incapable of supplying enough current for it at that moment. That may be because the power point simply can't supply that current demand because of limitations imposed by the gauge of wiring and the connections in the mains board, it may be because other devices in the house on the same circuit are drawing current as well and limiting the amount of current which can be supplied to the amp, or it may be a combination of both. The fact remains that amps aren't always capable of getting enough power on a moment to moment basis from the wall and that's why amps have their own internal power storage.

Some power conditioners (definitely not all power conditioners) have storage for this reason as well. When an amp has to draw power heavily and quickly, the conditioner has reserves it can draw on in order to better meet the amplifiers demands because otherwise it will be limited in what it can supply and, since it also is using current, it would not be able to supply as much to the amp as the amp could get from a direct wall connection. If you read a lot of comments and reviews of power conditioners you will find that one of the common criticisms of many of them is that they can't satisfy the current demands of amplifiers so there's a loss in dynamics. The PS Audio power plants  and some other power conditioners have power reserves in order to ensure that the amplifier is not going to be limited by the amount of current the conditioner can apply.

So yes, some conditioners (definitely not all conditioners) can supply more current than a straight connection to the wall can supply, and they can do so for the same reason that an amplifier can supply more current to the speakers for short periods than it can draw from the wall. There's nothing mysterious or controversial in that claim.