How many power conditioners do you guys use and what do you plug into them?

I'm using a single APC J10 to run AVR, DVD, Sub & PJ.......which also is rated at 15A but bear in mind its not recommended to permanently load a circuit more than 80% so 20A ends up being 16A

Don't think about what you need now but what might you need.....HT PC, multiple DVD changers, XBox, PS2.....who knows whats coming out next.

So I ran 2 x 20A

Whats the cost now - negligible.....if DIY probably less than $25 per circuit.

just my 2c

Cheers,
Mark

Hey Mark,
How much did you get your APC J10 for?

I use this on my projector so that the fan will run and I can shut down during an outage.
I got mine for less at Costco:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...43959&CatId=20

Then I have the PureAV P60 in my rack for everything else.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ghlight=pureav

My main power conditioner is Monster, and it has everything plugged into it except the Sub which has its own since it is some distance from the other equipment. I believe the Monster unit itself is plugged into a 20 amp circuit

According to APC, the J10 is rated at 600W or 1KVA. Using the latter at 120VAC, the J10 is specified as 8.3A. The J15 is rated at 865w/1.5KVA which comes closer at 12.5A.

Of course, since most devices generally draw a small fraction of their rated maximum, these APC units will handle most situations. I use an S15 with a system that, on paper, approaches its maximum load capacity but, monitoring the current load, it never comes close in practice.

Why would you need one at all? Power conditioners generally seem to be a waste of money unless you live in an area with a lot of electrical problems. Most people would be much better off spending the money on something else.

Of course. OTOH, if you do have AC problems, they are useful. Too bad that most people buy them for the wrong reasons, like "it makes my amp sound cleaner."

This is separate from the issue of surge protection.

How bad's your AC? Do you have/need surge protection?

I live on Cape Cod in an area that can not be termed rural by any means and I get constant spikes and lose power about 5 to 10 times a week though usually for seconds or minutes at a time. I would not want to have multi thousands worth of equipment without power conditioning, still need battery backup.

Many years ago we had lightning strike a power pole down the block from us and it took out all the electronics in the house. I had a transformer blowup on the pole in our yard the spike could have taken out my equipment but the Panamax shut down. I would not run my system without a surge protector. I will run a battery backup for my projector as soon as I purchase that too. Panamax will even protect against brown out situations where voltage gets too low or high from too many people running A/C...Use one your equipment will be much safer.

Nate

Surge protection needn't cost $500. A well-built $20 strip should handle situations like the transformer explosion above; they typically come with tens of thousands of dollars in insurance. On the other hand, if you sustain a direct hit, no product in the world will stop it...better to invest in a lightning rod, a prayer book, and a good homeowner's policy.

Battery backup is a good thing for computers and projectors which need a way to shut down cleanly. Totally unnecessary for receivers, amps, etc. In fact, most UPSes come with warnings not to use them with devices that can suddenly start pulling high current, such as laser printers. Amps fall into that category.

That would be funny if it were not serious. and Projectors DO need to shut down properly.
and have you ever READ that tens of thousands of coverage with surge protector strips?

All of these depend on shunting the surge to ground and, as a result, none will be as effective for this as a whole house protector close to the AC entry and, therefore, close to ground. Otherwise, the lowest resistance may be through something else that you'd like to preserve.


Or good grounding.


That's because you are reading the warnings for devices made for other purposes. There are devices correctly designed for this. I have an APC S15 which happily drives receviers, amps, etc. with aplomb.

Scroll up. That's what I said.


Yes, I have. I suspect it would be difficult to get them to actually pay up; if I get burned I'd much rather work with USAA than APC, assuming it didn't affect my premiums too much. But the same thing holds true for "power conditioner" products. Is there any evidence that APC is more likely to pay out claims made on their UPSes than claims made on their vanilla surge protectors?


I agree, this is the best option of all.


No doubt. Heck, we have some UPSes in the datacenter that could probably power your whole neighborhood. That doesn't make them a wise purchase for HT. Putting receivers on battery backup is just silly.

Mebbe. We have had some severe brownouts up in CT and we can continue to enjoy the movie and/or the music as the system rides it out on the APC. Admittedly, it's a convenience and not a necessity. The other thing it prevents is the surge that often follows a brown-out/black-out when the power returns.

These threads never seem to garner concensus. I had a friend who also had a lightning strike a few miles away (rural setting) and it ended up frying most of the components in her computer - I know because they sent me the PC to fix. Also another friend had 3 HDD's fail before he figured out that he was using the same circuit that his washing machine worked on.

So, given that I'd like cheap and effective protection from the 2 above scenarios, and that I have a TV, (hopefully soon) PS3, HTPC, Receiver, and an amp that probably draws 1200 watts, what product do I need? I'm just generally confused about surge protectors, voltage regulators, power conditioners, and UPS's. Maybe a whole-home surge protector for the lightning strike, and then an outlet-based unit so I can plug my PC into the same circuit as my deep freeze without worrying?

Yes and filters on all incoming signal lines.

This ain't Ars...you wouldn't believe some of the 'science' these guys preach here.

Felgar: You'll need whole house surge protection (cable, phone, and electrical is cheap). You should also consider an UPS with automatic voltage regulation for the HTPC and PS3 ($100 or so, 1 unit will power both). Automatic voltage regulation holds the voltage to the equipment steady (vs a plain UPS that typically only kicks in at 70V).

K, can you recommend a product? I figured my PC has a 500 W power supply plus say a few hundred watts for the PS3 and a DVD player etc. The APC UPS's that support 1000 watts are at least well over $200 from what I've seen. And that still doesn't help my receiver which will power 5 speakers (7.1 system, with a powered sub and that high-power stereo amp) and must draw up to 600 W at max output... Oh, and my TV which is around 300W too...

Regardless, as I rebuild the wall behind which (through an access panel) is my main circuit panel, I'll certainly look into good surge protection for it.

If you are addressing me: You can buy a computer UPS for the PC. For the rest, the price is what it is. Sorry.

Surge Protectors (TVSS) are used to eliminate transients (very short-term voltage spikes). These spikes are generally caused by switching transients (> 80% of them), but can also be caused by nearby lightning strikes. The most common culprits in residential applications are capacitor-start motors and switching power supplies. In commercial buildings, VFDs are the first thing to look for. A plain-jane TVSS does nothing to control steady-state voltage, and provides no low-frequency filtering, per se. Many high-end TVSS products ('series protection') bundle low-frequency filtering into the package.

The whole-house units are great for protecting from utility line transients from LTC switching and lightning, but you need to also provide point-of-use protection to absorb transients generated by equipment in your house. Both are a must if you have any significant amount of expensive gear. It is important, though that you have a unit which provides a SINGLE protection point vs. ground for cable, antenna/satellite, phone, and power. The reason? Let's say you have a power-only TVSS. If you take a lightning hit that is strong enough to lift the local ground level, then the phone line will still be at the original 0 V, while the power ground AND hot may instantaneously rise by 800 V or so. Although the TVSS clamps the two of them to a maximum of 140 V, without clamping them to the cable and phone grounds as well, you are still subjecting your gear (cable/DSL modems, satellite/cable recievers, etc.) to the 800V potential - bad things happen.

BTW, TVSSs are sacrificial, i.e., they degrade over time as they absorb transients, eventually becoming ineffective. Most of the good products provide indicators that show when a TVSS is used up and needs replacing.

Voltage Regulators actually control the steady-state voltage of your line. There are several methods of doing this; some will unfortunately induce transients themselves. Most houses don't really need these, because the utility regulates the voltage on the line with automated tap-changing voltage regulators; unless you have actually seen an excessively high or low voltage (from being at the beginning or end of a transmission line), this is probably a waste of money.

Power Conditioners are loosely defined - this term is used to mean lots of things, and is not controlled by UL standards in the same way as TVSS and UPS standards are. In general, though, this term is used to mean some sort of combination of TVSS and low-frequency foltering.

UPSs are lumped into several categories, but all of them continuously charge lead-acid batteries (generally VRLA), then use the batteries to provide backup power when the line voltage fails. They have three main sections: the Rectifier, whcih takes the AC line voltage and converts it to DC, the DC Bus, which is where the batteries are connected, and the Inverter, which changes the DC into the AC output power.

The cheap ones are 'Line-Interactive'. This means that they do absolutely nothing until the voltage drops below a certain preset threshhold, at which time they will take over supplying power to the load. These often use a very rudimentary inverter section, which generates a pretty lousy approximation of a sine wave. Watch out for these products - they can create problems for sensitive equipment with linear power supplies. They're fine for PCs and other devices that use switching supplies, however, as these devices generally aren't sensitive to voltage harmonics.

The better UPSs are 'Online Double-Conversion'. This type of UPS is always in the circuit, with the DC bus being fed by a combination of the inverter and the batteries. This design provides a glitch-free transition from line power to battery power, and inherently provides voltage regulation and frequency regulation. That said, it is still possible to find cheap UPSs with inverters that do not provide a filtered output. For sensitive equipment that needs continuous power, you want to have an Online UPS with output filtering; this provides a clean 60Hz voltage waveshape. These will almost always have enough internal TVSS protection to suffice, so this really will cover all the bases, assuming you also have a whole-house TVSS installed at your service entrance or main panel.

Hope this helps.......

Surge protectors are one thing, but I have yet to hear any knowledgeable electrical engineer say there is any merit to power conditioners (unless you live in an area with really bad power problems, which is much more rare than audiophiles would have you think). So get a power conditioner if you want one, but your money will usually be better spent on better speakers, etc.

With all due respect, as someone who has spent over 15 years in the power equipment industry, I have to say that this is simply not correct. Power quality normally has very little to do with your 'area'. It has everything to do with the load characteristics of your house, and the design and implementation of the distribution system feeding your house. It is accepted in the power industry that more than 80% of all power quality problems come from INSIDE the building, not from the distribution system itself. Your HVAC system, well/septic pumps, microwave, dimmers, cheap lighting ballasts, etc., all can put noise and harmonics onto your power line. Now, if your distribution transformer is in your yard (i.e. really short service line) and is very underloaded, it probably won't matter much. If, however, the transformer is a long way away and is heavily loaded, you can have some pretty serious power quality issues that the transformer can't push past. It all boils down to the source impedance, and you can't know that without doing a study for the particular situation.


This is true. However, if you have noise issues, better gear won't resolve them. A power conditioner (or a really good TVSS) will ALWAYS be far cheaper than mitigating the source of the noise.

Some gear, such as the Krell amps, expressly instruct against power conditioning:

"Do not operate the Evolution amplifiers with any device designed to alter or condition AC power." (User manual)

"Internal high current line conditioning circuitry filters RF noise on the AC mains, as well as compensating for asymmetric power waveforms and DC on the mains. The rails powering the amplifiers' low level and gain stages are regulated twice for total immunity from fluctuations in the AC mains and virtually noise-free output."

WOW, it's surprising to see on here how many audio/technophiles are not really informed about surge protectors/line conditioners. They are *INCREDIBLY* beneficial for your picture quality, longevity (sp?) for bulbs, sound clarity/quality, and the protective benefits for every aspect of your system. **I'D SUGGEST READING OVER ALL OF THIS AS SOME OF THIS HAS NOT BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT ON THIS THREAD** - Any input/additional info would be greatly appreciated! ;-)

First of all, ANY surge protector is better than putting any electronic directly in the wall. If you don't use a surge, you might want to make a list of things you'll wanna do with your TV/electronic after its been fried after a strong storm (i.e, use your fried plasma as a sled! ;-)

Second of all, the electricity in America is horrible. I live in NC and the state was just rated the 2nd worst in the nation for dirty/unstable electricity. Surge protectors are the first step. But for instance Monster (my company of choice) and other manufacturer's offer it as well different cleaning/filtering stages to improve on everything I mentioned above. For instance their power centers offer upto 5 different stages. They stop against the BIG surges, and the small spikes (what happens everytime you or your neighborS' fridge, TV, computer, A/C kicks on - gradually damages the components inside your TV/Receiver). They also help to direct different electric currents to different kinds of components (the higher the stages you go, the more sophistacted they get). In terms of cleaner sound, if you've ever had a stereo system or a surround sound system and never had anything playing and heard a hummm, that's dirty electricity, they tend to clean that out. (also side note: you always wanna have a surge protector on your subwoofer because w/o one, a surge can knock out your whole system)

Third of all, battery back ups are essential for DLP, LCD projections - anything with a bulb/halogen lamp. If the electricity is cut, the bulb doesnt have sufficient time to cool/warm causing the life to be cut shorter. For instance, my Monster Power UPS500 will allow my tv to stay on, giving me time to turn it off so that the fan can run to cool down the bulb saving its life. Also using something like a TV power backup IS NOT the same as a computer power-back up, they require different amounts of power supply. ALSO I read somewhere above that receivers don't need battery-back up, uhhh yes they do. they have fans and cooling systems that need to operate in order to save the system.

Finally, voltage stabilizers are not essential, but recommended. By giving your components 120volts constantly make sure they dont have to work harder to perform or have to adjust to too much electricity.

My power supplies/line conditioners/battery back-up supples - Monster Power AVS2000 Voltage Stabilizer, Monster Power 3500MKII (Stage 3) Power Center, and Monster Power UPS500 (battery back up) - used for a DLP projection, home theatre system, etc.

Kevin - I apologize. I looked at your AVS profile, and it says you're a 20-yr-old student, so my sarcasm was definitely not appropriate.

Working at CC, it seems you have succumbed to the Monster advertising/PR juggernaut....if you do some research on the things you discussed, I think you'll find that a good deal of it is not accurate.