Do these things do anything?

capecodder

The local discount retail store (Ocean State Job Lot to those northeast coasters) just brought in some Acoustic Research Power Conditioners/surge protectors. They claim they "condition" the power and filter out "bad power" and only let "good power" through. Its supposed to improve the sound and vision quality. Is this snake oil or are they any good? Also has a better quality surge protection that may be OK by itself. Even if you can't hear a difference are they a quality power strip to use for hooking up my equipment? They are selling them for $18.99.

Here is an ebay listing for one of the models they are selling.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ACOUSTIC-RESEARCH-POWER-CONDITIONER-SURGE-AP-08V_W0QQitemZ300064247466QQihZ020QQcategoryZ67780QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


By the way. How do you guys do a link where you just have the word be the link. I ain't too safffissteekated with this chat room stuff.

disneyjoe7

capecodder wrote:

They claim they "condition" the power and filter out "bad power" and only let "good power" through. Its supposed to improve the sound and vision quality.

I say I believe in power conditioners, but you may get what you pay for. For less then $20 bucks I say stay away.

capecodder

While I have never actually heard the benefits, I am aware of high end power conditioning. I was mostly wondering if these cheapo units would do anything more than just serve as a power strip.

F1nut

Looks like a power strip to me.

disneyjoe7

Yes a power strip to me also.

dkg999

I have one of those I bought from Best Buy to use in the bedroom on my NAD receiver and CDP I have in that room. Just needed some additional outlets and thought the power conditioning would be an added benefit! It totally choked the NAD receiver, killed the dynamics in the sound. I couldn't believe it! I replaced it with the little Tripp Lite 8 outlet surge protector which works great, no impact I can tell on sound.

disneyjoe7

Heck it doesn't even make a good power strip, may good for a door stop?

bikezappa

Most all electronic equipment has it's own power conditioning equipment.

It's called a power supply that converts AC to DC and filters out other frequencies.

jcaut

It's just a basic, cheap surge strip like you can buy at Walmart for about the same price.

Now, sorry to go O.T.:

Being a water treatment plant manager, I take issue with their ad where they compare the "dirty" electrical power to tap water. "If you're like most people, you don't drink tap water, unless it has been well filtered." Perpetrating the myth that tap water is "dirty". Does AR own a bottled water company, too? Or perhaps they sell water filters?? Sorry, I just get tired of hearing all the crap about bottled water when I know the standards we are held to vs. the bottled water companies.

capecodder

This is kind of what I figured. Thanks for input. No surprise, it looks like it won't do what they claim and as per dkg999 may make things worse for Christ's sake.

jcaut wrote:

Being a water treatment plant manager, I take issue with their ad where they compare the "dirty" electrical power to tap water. Sorry, I just get tired of hearing all the crap about bottled water when I know the standards we are held to vs. the bottled water companies.

You are right. Its getting to the point where people (my wife and kids at times as well) won't drink tap water. Hell, we have wonderful water out here on the outer Cape! Water companies marketing/advertising has been very effective at making people think they shouldn't drink water unless its bottled from some alleged artesian mountain spring that probably really comes from the local water utilities tap in the factory.

Music Joe

Acoustic Research liquidated a few years back.Audiovox bought it out and carries foward a mix of old and new, however no listing of power products at the Audiovox website, those strips could be new old stock AR product. If they fail do you contact Audiovox?

jcaut

I can understand it, for convenience or if you simply don't like the taste of your tap water, I guess. But to think it's somehow safer, more pure or whatever, is just not correct.

It bothers me because the standards we have to meet keep getting tougher and tougher all the time. In addition to that page that I attached, there are probably 300 other things that are checked on a regular basis, and individual state standards can be even tougher. Not so for bottled water. It's very lightly regulated by FDA. If your bottled water is truly from some spring or whatever, there's no telling just what is actually in there. Very few groundwater sources are pure enough anymore to meet EPA standards without some kind of treatment. So it depends upon what kind of filtering or purification they're doing before it's bottled (and again, it's very lightly regulated, compared to any U.S. public water system). Most bottled waters are simply somebody's tap water that's been run through a carbon filter or reverse osmosis setup to remove the chlorine. Their cost for water+processing is probably in the neighborhood of $0.0065 per bottle. Then they add all that environmentally-unfriendly packaging and sell it for $1. Wow. And I bet even Al Gore drinks bottled water...

Jason

John K.

Capecodder, there are probably better surge protectors available for around $20 that could possibly be of some benefit. Audio equipment is engineered to handle typical surges routinely, but a surge protector might help for a rare surge of intermediate strength(no help for a near direct lightning strike).

Disregard the advertising claims there about "polluted AC power". As bikezappa pointed out , audio equipment has a power supply section with a transformer, rectifier and filter capacitors which supplies clean DC; "polluted AC" isn't relevant.

To make one of them fancy one word links put [ url= in front of the entire link that you showed(but no space after the [), then another ] at the end of it. Then stick in whatever word you want to describe your link and put [/url] at the end of that(no spaces anywhere).

kmartin971

Panamax is the best! I would not run a serious system without one! Panamax can be had online for half the retail price! Up your price to $300-600 range!

doggie750

jcaut wrote:

It's very lightly regulated by FDA. If your bottled water is truly from some spring or whatever, there's no telling just what is actually in there. Very few groundwater sources are pure enough anymore to meet EPA standards without some kind of treatment. So it depends upon what kind of filtering or purification they're doing before it's bottled (and again, it's very lightly regulated, compared to any U.S. public water system). Most bottled waters are simply somebody's tap water that's been run through a carbon filter or reverse osmosis setup to remove the chlorine. Their cost for water+processing is probably in the neighborhood of $0.0065 per bottle. Then they add all that environmentally-unfriendly packaging and sell it for $1. Wow. And I bet even Al Gore drinks bottled water...

Jason

Worked in EBMUD (Water waste management District)....It is true that tap water are regulated by FDA coz it's public. However it all depends on the county and city where you live in. Some areas are clean, hard, soft water so be advised to check your local water district. My advise is to use home RO unit.

SURGE PROTECTOR: The higher the joules the higher the $$$. PGE and several power plant have cause spikes, bad for your components, by switching (it varies in time due to use of energy in a certain spot of your community) This is significant especially if your location is close proximity to power plant, need to contact PGE or Energy source for details and question if routine switching is being conducted. :cool:

F1nut

Disregard anything Johnny K. says as it's not relevant to fine audio reproduction.

George Grand

Jason,

There was a newspaper article I just read recently that reinforced everything you have stated about water. It appears "water bars" are now starting to pop up here and there, with some people paying as much as $50 for a single bottle of the top shelf stuff. If you're laughing, I'm right there with you.

Sorry for the slight derail.

amulford

I'm in the wrong business...

Looks like a power strip to me...

disneyjoe7

George Grand wrote:

Jason,

There was a newspaper article I just read recently that reinforced everything you have stated about water. It appears "water bars" are now starting to pop up here and there, with some people paying as much as $50 for a single bottle of the top shelf stuff. If you're laughing, I'm right there with you.

Sorry for the slight derail.

No George we are not laughing WE ARE CRYING :rolleyes: :eek: