merkin Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Is there any advantage to power conditioners over the power strip surge protectors at home depo. I have been using a plain old surge protector. I can't understand how anything moster can do for the power other than just protect against surges. Without some sort of battery how can they stop low voltage. Maybe I'm just ignorant when it comes to electronics. After you protect it from a surge is there much else one can do? This will be for my projector and receiver and dvd player and cable box(if I keep cable) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bimmeup Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Merkin, First of all, nice car in the pic! As far as whether there is an advantage of using Power Conditioners vs. Strip Surge Protectors, the answer is yes! Surge protectors do exactly what they say, protect your electronic equipment from a big surge spike when lightning strikes etc. which if unprotected, could fry your electronics. Surge protectors though don't protect your equipment from the small spikes that are fairly normal in the home. A power conditioner/surge protector gives you the same protection against surges, but then helps level out the voltage in your home and keeps it at a steady rate! Here's an example for you. Before I had a Power Conditioner hooked up to my setup in my living room, I would notice "waves" going across the tv from time to time and sometimes the "snowy" effect. And then if my wife stuck something in the microwave and started it up, I would get a quick static spike on the tv. After putting the conditioner/surge protector inline, I no longer have these problems because it levels the power and keeps it steady. I've also read that these small spikes can slowly do harm to your electronics. So, in a nutshell, yes these things help. I ended up buying the Monster strip conditioner/surge protector at Best Buy! Here's the link http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6418753&type=product&id=1077627972545 Hope this helps! Bimmeup Matt[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picky Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 merkin: Let me just say that a Line Conditioner as compared to a Surge Protector strip is comparing apples to oranges. Surge protectors: Protect from voltage spikes, and usually provide some form of filteration to help eliminate noise and tranisents. Some may even handle lightening to an extent. Line Conditions: (Not just devices made by "Monster) In addition to doing what surge protector do, only on a highly level, they are also capable of correcting line voltage fluctuation. This covers over-voltages and brownouts (saggs). Let's use 120 volts as our benchmark. This is the normal voltage you want your HT equipment to see. Let's say we're in a Mid-Western state in the month of July and it's 6 PM. The outside temperature is 95 and the humidity is 85%. Everyone is arriving hoe fom work and the first thing they do is turn on their Air Conditioning. The second thing they do is start cooking dinner, many of which use electric stoves and ovens. Guess what happens to the line voltage? It tanks. It goes down from 120 volts to say, 95 volts. If you turned on your HT equipment, that's what it would see: 95 volts. A Line Conditioner correct this voltage back to 120 volts. The same thing would be true is for some reason the voltage coming into your house was 130 volts. A line conditioner brings it back down to 120 volts. The effective range of a line conditioner is usually somewhere between 89 and 140 volts. Beyond those two limits the line conditioner simply shuts down the power to your equipment to protect it. Line conditions do a lot ofother things two, but that is the primary difference from a surge protector strip. I use an LCR2400 made by Tripp Lite. It handles a 20 amp load. The units you spoke of that use batteries are often called UPS Units (Uninteruptable Power Supply). I don't use one, nor do I have experience with them, so I will let another member discuss those. Ah! I see bimmeup just posted pretty much the same thing while I was writing this post. Sorry for the redundancy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Adams Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Which is why merkin you should buy my Furman power conditioner surge protector. It's a great piece of gear and the price is very reasonable. [] Seriously though, if you research Furman products, you'll see why they're used by pro's. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrestonTom Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Merkin, You are asking all the right questions. Please search some of the earlier threads. There has been much discussion on this topic (although some of it is hidden in some vitriolic attacks as I recall). In terms of conditioners for dealing with transient drops in voltage you are quite correct, a battery will do this. To a certain extent a huge capacitor will do this also. This is what they used in the computer industry where the issues were critical. Not all is lost. Remember the power supplies on your amp etc also have a transformer followed by a large capacitor - this will also help with momnetary drops in voltage from the wall. Unfortunately, not unlike the voodoo surrounding cables & wire, some have seized upon this as a way of confusing folks ( I am referring to line conditioners not surge protectors - which should be used). Consequently you can pay quite a bit for fancy line conditioners that are dubious regarding their impact on the sound. And as we have all seen before, there are folks out there who will swear to their virtues. Usually the comments will include: "revealing, detailed, opens up the sound" etc. Save your money. If there is an actual problem, such as a pop or click when the refrigerator or air conditioner comes on, then some remedy may be required. Forgive my cynical nature. Issues regarding sound reproduction are usually matters of physics, room acoustics and engineering. They are not matters of voodoo. I hate seeing folks waste their time and money on the dumb stuff. Good Luck, -Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ARPRINCE Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Merkin, Here's the link http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6418753&type=product&id=1077627972545 Hope this helps! Bimmeup Matt[] I have the MP HTS 2000 MKII one and I like it. The unit or the (HTS 1000 MKII model fromt he link above) however DOES NOT regulate the voltage unike the Triplite LCR2400. I bought a separate voltage regulator (from APC) and plugged my 2000MK2 into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bimmeup Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Hey Merkin, I just thought of one other thing. You said that you also want to protect your projector on this as well! You know as well as everyone pretty much here, that projectors have a "cool down" time when they're turned off where the fan continues to cool the lamp. If you were to have a power outage or lightning strike etc. that shuts off the power, your projector will not be able to go to it's cool down cycle! Since I'm going through the design phaze of my new HT in my new home, I decide to use a Conditioner/Surge with Battery backup so that I'll have time to correctly shut down my projector and give it the cool down time it needs if the power shuts down for some reason. This should save the life of the lamp as well which is pretty pricey as most are! Just another thought for you to consider! Bimmeup Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndyKlipschFan Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Upstairs system is monster... HT is furman... If money no object combining the surge and power... No question APC American Power Conditioning seems to have THE BEST out there.. You can read all the specs on it till you are blue in the face too. I highly reccomend them they were late getting into this market.. OK VERY LATE.. I am not talking the computer line... But the new audio/ video line.. IT IS AWESOME>.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndyKlipschFan Posted November 17, 2005 Share Posted November 17, 2005 Here is the link for APC... Take a look yourself... Great stuff... http://apc.com/products/category.cfm?id=15&lid=15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petrol Posted November 18, 2005 Share Posted November 18, 2005 I have an APC S10 power conditioner with battery... BTW, after having "lost" almost every electronic device in our house last spring to a lightning strike (everything for clock radios & ceiling fans to AV equipment) I had installed a panel mounted APC "Whole-House" Surge Suppressor the first line of defense Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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