power conditioners -any good ?

brettw22

Originally posted by RuSsMaN
Sorry to de-rail for a moment, but the apartment dwellers here really ought to contact their insurance agent for renters insurance. God forbid, theft, fire, storm damage, all fairly common in multi-family housing.

VERY good call on that Russ. I have had a renters policy (apartment dweller) for a while now, and all my equipment is running into a UPS, which I believe does some sort of surge protecting.......(not sure about that exactly)

Worst case scenario I suppose that I could get a little surge protector power strip and call it a day and let my insurance actually do something for me should anything actually happen with my equipment.........

jmierzur

Final post on the benefits of balanced power. I get the impression I am wasting my time writing these updates.

ezc and all,

The noise in our lines measures in the mid to high 100's, according to the Monster Power Sniffer. Fortunately, we do not hear broadcasts through our lines. Voltage fluctuates between 118 and 122. I do not think this warrants voltage regulation at this time. Maybe one day I will test an AVS 2000 against and in conjunction with the BPT unit. The voltage regulator I would prefer to try would be the Exact Power unit, with has sub-cycle waveform correction and does not use tap switching to regulate voltage. Monster does not specify how they correct voltage; I suspect a number of taps.

In my Balanced Power thread, I present a technology I tested that significantly improved my entire system. It removed system noise AND provided significant improvements to the overall presentation.

I continued by conducting a side-by-side comparison of the Monster HTPS 7000 and the BPT BP-2.5. The clear and undisputed leader in all performance categories is the BPT unit. The clear and undisputed leader in the user functionality and looks category is the Monster unit.

I prefer to spend my money on a unit that provides the best performance instead of adding extras that are not required. I can continue using the power button on individual components to energize my system. I lived like this in the pre power-conditioning era and can continue indefinitely in this archaic manor.

I know I made the right choice by the comparisons I conducted. Enough said.

polkatese

jmierzur,
I do appreciate your reviews of BPT unit, and the value proposition of having balanced power. And you are not wasting your time writing this....BP-2.5 doesn't have EMI/RFI filtering stage compared to -3, is that right? I am also interested to understand in layman term, Russ question above on EMI/RFI definition.

Here is a link that I've been reading on BPT review:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_8_3/balanced-power-tech-bp-2-line-conditioner-9-2001.html...

jmierzur

polkatese,

I have one more post to the Balanced Power thread I promised to 'F1nut'. That's it from me on this subject.

Please read the specifications on the b-p-t.com site, ULTRA ISOLATOR FEATURES page, before stating what they do and do not include.

Not sure what the '-3' refers to. I assume its Monster's stages of filtering. Once again if I have not been clear, the BP-2.5 surpassed the best Monster has to offer, the HTPS 7000. Will not be comparing to a SS edition as I do not care at this point and will not waste any more time on Monster products. Panamax also has a new unit along the same principles as the HTPS 7000. I believe it is the 5510.

The article you refer to uses standard transformers. The 2.5 (and now three others) utilize the LoNo transformer, which is even better. The NBT transformer (BP-3.5) should be even be better than the standard LoNo. I have one more upgrade to my unit that will make it equivalent to the 3.5. The upgrades can be found on the POWER CORDS & UPGRADES page if you are interested.

Others can add/correct as they see fit. Basically, wiring acts as an antenna or transmitter to receive or transmitt RF (radio frequencies). The closer you are to transmitters (radio stations or other wires), the more problems you will have. (Band pass) Filtering removes RF interference. Shielded cables (coax, shielded interconnects, etc.) prevent RF interference from entering or leaving the cables. Electrical wiring is not shielded. Perform a search on the Internet. This will provide you with better explanations and how to protect against it.

A word of warning if you are thinking of try balanced power. DO NOT undersize your power requirements (transformer size). If you do, you will get a weak, thin sound from your system and will be very disappointed.

Good luck on your selections.

polkatese

jmierzur,
-3 refers to BPT-3. thanks again for the explanations..

jmierzur

polkatese,

If you are looking at the BP-3, you will be able to connect equipment rated to 2.5A on one duplex (2 outlets, source components only) and the remaining four duplexes (eight outlets) will only provide a total of 7.5A of power. A noise filter isolates each duplex so there is no isolation problem with units with one larger transformer. I read somewhere that a good rule of thumb was to budget for up to 80% utilization for optimum results.

I looked at your system profile. Cannot say that I would recommend a BP-3 for either system; if you want to take full advantage of the capabilities of balanced power, use it for your entire system. The BP-2 (if you have a 20A circuit, the BP-2.5) would be much better. I have read many bad posts regarding balanced power where people try to use multiple small transformers to further isolate each component. A vivid description was that it ‘sucked the life from my system’.

If you are interested, send BPT an email. They will help you with any questions or concerns you have.

polkatese

jmierzur,
thanks for the education and suggestions...

sickicw

I have a questions, jmierzur. when you tested the BPT against the monster 7000, where you testing the BPT 2.5 base unit (for around $1200) or the 2.5 with upgrades that costs much much more. Also can you describe the upgrades that you added and benifits they provided?
Thanks

Skynut

Almost three years old this thread is.

I did lots of homework before I bought my Panamax and I love it.
It helped my system sound clean up alittle but this was before I found this site and alot of tweeking info.

It did clean up the video a noticeable amount. I was very impressed with the picture on my 10yo Toshiba.

I am now looking into trying another pc. Either an apc s15 or an exactpower ep15a (i think?) I need one for the bedroom and figure whichever one I like better will stay in the main rig.

I totally agree with the cool looks in the rack plus most of my friends still use power strips for their protection and are totally impressed that I would drop that kind of coin on protection. Go figure. Of course I should mention that most of my friends are still HTIB people.

FicmanS

My Monster unit stopped the popping in my Sub... I was glad I purchased...

mantis

Skynut wrote:

Almost three years old this thread is.

I did lots of homework before I bought my Panamax and I love it.
It helped my system sound clean up alittle but this was before I found this site and alot of tweeking info.

It did clean up the video a noticeable amount. I was very impressed with the picture on my 10yo Toshiba.

I am now looking into trying another pc. Either an apc s15 or an exactpower ep15a (i think?) I need one for the bedroom and figure whichever one I like better will stay in the main rig.

I totally agree with the cool looks in the rack plus most of my friends still use power strips for their protection and are totally impressed that I would drop that kind of coin on protection. Go figure. Of course I should mention that most of my friends are still HTIB people.

I also went to Panamx from Monster. I got the Panamax M5500ex. It's really nice.

Dan

Skynut

Great piece of mind knowing my stuph is protected.

sickicw

I guess i am looking into this more as a way to get better sound. It makes since that if i were to use a BPT with a large transformer that it would help more clean current flow through my system. Im also thinking about getting an electrition to come and install a entire home surge protection

Skynut

My next house will have total home protection plus point of use protection.
I just don't really want to do it here.