Line Conditioners/Filters

[HAVIC]

Hello All, I have been going crazy over the last few weeks reading about line conditioners, stabilizers,filters,power plants, etc...

I would like to add some extra protection with out breaking the bank, but am not sure what type to get.

I live on Long Island and we have pretty good electricity. Very few brownouts or power outages. However I do live in an apartment building and I am concerned about old wiring and have seen some small issues that concerns me.

Currently all I have is an APC UPS with 1 power strip connected to it. When I turn on my reciever or subwoofer I hear the UPS click on and off. Usually a ups does this when it senses no power and the battery backup kicks in. Not sure what the electrical issue is there. I know this UPS is not a line conditioner.

I was looking into a Monster 3500 or 5100 but then read about mov's for surge suppression and read they are bad, Most Serial surge protectors do not offer coax surge suppresion in them. Basically to get everything you need 3 different types of devices.

With out going crazy I would like to spend around $600 (preferably less) for some protection and possible better juice. Any suggestions would be appreciated?

Thanks
Greg

[topspeed]

Go to audiogon.com and look for some used conditioners from Chang Lightspeed, RGPC, or the one that started it all, PS Audio. Here is a link (http://www.psaudio.com/power.asp) to PSA's products, many of which fall into your price range new. Like amps, conditioners or regenerators are usually pretty safe to buy used as there are no moving parts to damage.

Personally, I was never a big believer in these things until a friend of mine that is an EE tried one out and was dumbfounded by the difference on his monitor. This guy is not only a serious audiophile (he built his own speakers with plasma tweeters) but also a serious skeptic regarding a lot of the voo-doo the proliferates the audio world. I think the dramatic change actually annoyed the hell out of him as he swore up and down that it shouldn't make that much of a difference. I'm getting a Monster pc free with my new monitor so that's what I'll use, but if I had a choice I'd go with PSA or RGPC.

Hope this helps.

[HAVIC]

Go to audiogon.com and look for some used conditioners from Chang Lightspeed, RGPC, or the one that started it all, PS Audio. Here is a link (http://www.psaudio.com/power.asp) to PSA's products, many of which fall into your price range new. Like amps, conditioners or regenerators are usually pretty safe to buy used as there are no moving parts to damage.

Personally, I was never a big believer in these things until a friend of mine that is an EE tried one out and was dumbfounded by the difference on his monitor. This guy is not only a serious audiophile (he built his own speakers with plasma tweeters) but also a serious skeptic regarding a lot of the voo-doo the proliferates the audio world. I think the dramatic change actually annoyed the hell out of him as he swore up and down that it shouldn't make that much of a difference. I'm getting a Monster pc free with my new monitor so that's what I'll use, but if I had a choice I'd go with PSA or RGPC.

Hope this helps.

My biggest problem with buying used is almost all of these devices use mov surge protection. If anyone does not understand the difference between mov and serial mode surge protectors read below what Doug Deacon wrote in a post on avsforum. That being said if the used device is an mov then the surge protection in it is useless. However if I can get one used I guess I can always put a serial surge protector in front of it. Thanks topspeed for the info.





Doug Deacon07-11-03, 12:32 PM
There are only two technologies widely available for surge/spike protection. Once you understand the differences between them, the decision about which technology to buy is trivially easy.

Metal Oxide Varistor (MOV) surge suppressors
MOV's are used in products sold by Monster, APC, Walmart, Radio Shack and nearly every other surge suppressor and UPS on the market. MOV's have three features you need to know about:

1. They all have a finite clamping speed, some of the surge gets through before the rest is shunted to ground. Your "protected" equipment takes a constant series of mini-spikes. Nothing you'll notice, nothing to invoke the $5MM equipment replacement warranty, but not good for delicate circuits either.

2. MOV's work by shunting excess voltage to ground, which contaminates the ground of all circuits that share the same ground. Electrical grunge and screwed up voltage for the whole system.

3. MOV's are all designed to fail. They are a consumable. Every spike they shunt, whether large or small, degrades them. That's what "joules ratings" are for, they indicate how many joules the MOV can shunt before failing.

Once an MOV fails, and they all will, they provide no more protection. Zero. If your unit doesn't have some kind of warning indicator (most don't, unfortunately) you'll find out when the next spike comes through and fries your equipment.

UPDATE: a few lucky users will find out immediately when their MOV takes its final hit, since they've been known to ignite. That's right, a fire in your HT rack! To be honest, this is fairly rare... feel better?

Not interested in MOV-based "protection"? Keep reading.

Series Mode (SM) surge suppressors
These were originally designed for the Dept. of Defense, which wasn't happy with the limitations of MOV-based protectors. They are far more reliable and robust than MOV's:

1. SM suppressors have virtually instantaneous reaction speed, nothing gets through above the threshold.

2. Excess voltage is never shunted to ground where it can contaminate the system. When a spike comes in the SM device just opens the circuit. No circuit, no surge.

3. A SM suppressor will probably not wear out in your lifetime. They are not designed-to-fail consumables. SM surge suppressors have no joules ratings because, realistically speaking, they have no capacity limits. There is no practical way to measure the total joules these devices can handle. It would be like trying to measure the amount of water you can pour into a bottomless cup.

For more details about SM surge suppressors:
http://www.digitaltechonline.com/surgeprotect.asp

AFAIK, they are available from just four commercial sources. Compared with the value of your equipment they're not very expensive. I have one on the dedicated circuit that runs my entire HT setup. Cost me about $250 plus an electrician to wire it in. If you prefer a unit that you can just plug into the wall, or even a whole-house unit, they make those too.

Sources for SM surge suppressors:
ZeroSurge (http://www.zerosurge.com) (the inventor of the technology)
BrickWall (http://www.brickwall.com) (good value and a sponsor of this forum)
Surgex (http://www.surgex.com) (wall-based units like mine)
Adcom (http://www.adcom.com) (audio components with SM protection)

NOTE: your coax lines (cable/sat/antenna) are also pathways for electrical surges. No matter how well-protected your AC lines are, a nearby lightning strike could reach any equipment connected, directly or indirectly, to these other paths. The Adcom units linked above already include coax protection of a kind similar to the units described below. If you chose a ZeroSurge, Brickwall or Surgex you should get one of the following...

AVSForum member jkhome found a $5 coax surge suppressor. Like an MOV, this device apparently takes a limited number of hits before dying but, here's the key, when it does reach its limit it stops passing signal. This is the opposite of what MOV's do, and is much safer for your equipment. Product details are at:

Surgender coax surge suppressor (http://www.newtechindustries.com/newtech/access/se1k.htm)

Video321 adds that, "Radio Shack has an add-on coax surge protector for $10. The model # is 15-1110. The surge life is 5x that of the Surgender and also lists a frequency range of 5 to 2050MHz."

Either of these seems like a good investment if you choose a SM line protector other than an Adcom.

Disclaimer: I don't have trouble changing light bulbs, but I am not an electrician or electrically qualified in any way. The above is based on a lot of careful research when looking for my own surge protection devices.

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[topspeed]

Thanks for that. Here's a clip from the May issue of Stereophile, Kal's Music in the Round where he compared pc's:

Protection? Well, the Power Director 3.5 is decidedly not a series device. It uses Tranzorbers and MOVs for parallel-mode surge protection even though these devices are vulnerable to destructive deterioration and have been criticized by the serial-mode camp. However, Paul McGowan says that the PD 3.5 solves that problem: "What we've done . . . is to fuse the Tranzorber—not in the AC line, but in series with the Tranzorber. Now, for most surges the Tranzorber clamps and fixes and saves. If the surge is too big, then the fuse blows and saves the Tranzorber and disengages the relay in series with the line. The relay opens and disconnects the AC so everything is safe until the fuse is replaced. . . . During this time, we have a big gaggle of MOVs that clamp long enough to allow the relay to open. Pretty bulletproof method, and the good news is it's nonintrusive sonically." No mention is made of undervoltage protection.

The good news, as McGowan should be happy to hear, is that the Power Director 3.5 is the first AC device that actually made my system sound livelier and more open. With the whole system running through the PD 3.5, the ambient space in Ray Kimber's IsoMike Tests 2005A SACD (footnote 2) seemed larger but more specific, as if I could hear more distant information. Dynamic kicks, such as in the disc's snippet of Tchaikovsky orchestral music, had just a bit more impact and size. The ability of the PD 3.5's innards to handle all the 20A juice (despite its 15A circuit breaker) might distinguish its performance from the BrickWall and the Empower, but why should that distinguish it from having no restriction in the AC line? Subjective noise from the quiescent system was the same as with the BrickWall or with nothing, so I doubt if low-level details were somehow unmasked. I do recall getting the same dynamic impressions from the PS Audio HCA-2 power amp, which I thought somewhat larger than life, but the PS Audio Power Director 3.5's subtler invigoration of the sound is greatly appreciated.