You think Furman power conditioners are worthless?
Maybe worthless is too strong a word. Everyone needs a paperweight on a windy day. These are my preliminary impressions of the Furman PL-PLUS II line conditioner. It has a voltmeter on the front, some pullout rack lights, and claims to do nifty things to keep your power clean and safe. This is going to be kind of stream-of-consciousness since I dont have much time to write.
First impression as the unit comes out of the box: For a $200 rackmount piece of equipment, this thing is really lightweight. And why does this one rack light keep sliding out on its own? The other one requires a firm tug to pull it out all the way. Every time I move my rack, the light is going to extend. I feel the quality already. Or not.
Well, lets plug it in and turn it on. Plugged in. Switched on. Theres something interesting. It switched power on to the outlets right away, before I even had a chance to read the voltmeter. Oh, that was pretty. The row of display lights ran back and forth for a few seconds before reading out what the voltmeter was actually sensing.
Look at that, it just went into protect mode after 15 seconds of normal operation. OK, cycle the power. Another pretty light show. Seems to be running normally now.
These rack lights are actually pretty bright. They are a combination of one white LED and two yellowish LEDs that create a somewhat soft color. Each light is a circuit board mounted inside a tubular housing. It is some kind of conduit pipe cut down into small sections with a crude hole drilled in it. Painted silver, I think. The lights are retained by plastic clips to the front panel. They feel cheap and loose.
Ill take a look under the hood. Theres no warranty seal or anything.
Uh, wow. Is underwhelmed a standard English word? This is certainly not what I would call robust. There is no isolation between the outlets. The dimmer board is at a weird angle. Wait. What. Is. That. That is a metal fragment. Just floating around inside the casing.
Guess its a good thing I opened it up. Thats how fires start.
I have attached some pictures that I snapped while the case was open. Considering how well amplifier power supplies are made these days, a line conditioner like this is really an optional component of your rack. Unless you are using a bona fide line regulator, youre not going to gain much except to maybe isolate a ground loop. Series mode protection is nice.
You can see in the pictures the minimal build-out inside the PL-PLUS II. This could be expected, but what really bothers me is the overall poor build quality and the loose piece of metal inside. And that damn light. For 200 bones, I really expected more. Thanks, Furman.
Maybe worthless is too strong a word. Everyone needs a paperweight on a windy day. These are my preliminary impressions of the Furman PL-PLUS II line conditioner. It has a voltmeter on the front, some pullout rack lights, and claims to do nifty things to keep your power clean and safe. This is going to be kind of stream-of-consciousness since I dont have much time to write.
First impression as the unit comes out of the box: For a $200 rackmount piece of equipment, this thing is really lightweight. And why does this one rack light keep sliding out on its own? The other one requires a firm tug to pull it out all the way. Every time I move my rack, the light is going to extend. I feel the quality already. Or not.
Well, lets plug it in and turn it on. Plugged in. Switched on. Theres something interesting. It switched power on to the outlets right away, before I even had a chance to read the voltmeter. Oh, that was pretty. The row of display lights ran back and forth for a few seconds before reading out what the voltmeter was actually sensing.
Look at that, it just went into protect mode after 15 seconds of normal operation. OK, cycle the power. Another pretty light show. Seems to be running normally now.
These rack lights are actually pretty bright. They are a combination of one white LED and two yellowish LEDs that create a somewhat soft color. Each light is a circuit board mounted inside a tubular housing. It is some kind of conduit pipe cut down into small sections with a crude hole drilled in it. Painted silver, I think. The lights are retained by plastic clips to the front panel. They feel cheap and loose.
Ill take a look under the hood. Theres no warranty seal or anything.
Uh, wow. Is underwhelmed a standard English word? This is certainly not what I would call robust. There is no isolation between the outlets. The dimmer board is at a weird angle. Wait. What. Is. That. That is a metal fragment. Just floating around inside the casing.
Guess its a good thing I opened it up. Thats how fires start.
I have attached some pictures that I snapped while the case was open. Considering how well amplifier power supplies are made these days, a line conditioner like this is really an optional component of your rack. Unless you are using a bona fide line regulator, youre not going to gain much except to maybe isolate a ground loop. Series mode protection is nice.
You can see in the pictures the minimal build-out inside the PL-PLUS II. This could be expected, but what really bothers me is the overall poor build quality and the loose piece of metal inside. And that damn light. For 200 bones, I really expected more. Thanks, Furman.
