I got my Furman PL-8 for $44 from guitar center. I love this thing. I nolonger have to plug my equipment into multiple outlets or worry about hum or bad grounding. The lights are a nice plus too on a low light situation.
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Power conditioners- really necessary?
- Thread starter Robin Ruscio
- Start date
Justin V said:
My graduate studies included a dash of power supply engineering, so I'm by no means an expert. But my opinion is that CONVENIENCE, along the lines mentioned here, is the only real reason to get one of the Furmans in the 100-200 price range. These units help manage cords and may keep power cords away from speaker cables, which can sometimes generate noise.
Surge strips are mostly the same, just 1/10th the cost--and care should be take to make sure that they accomodate the amperes your unit draws. They may offer limited protection against the first surge, but after that, they don't--and you never know whether your strip has seen that lethal dose yet or not.
The best choice for the least money is to go to Staples/Officemax and buy one of those Universal Power Supplies/Universal Power Converters for $59-$79 dollars. These are heavy, but are of the next-higher level of technology from the strip/furmans and offer actual power conditioning. You can surely get a rackmount power conditioner, but they're all heavy and as you well know, anything rackmountable costs twice as much for the same guts.
As the guy from QSC mentioned, your rig may not really need the protection--all you may REALLY need is a reliable outlet tester, available for a few bucks from Radio Shack.
I'm running one of the cheap Numark RC-8 units:
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It has 8 outlets, power conditioner(?), LED volt meter, pullout lights w/dimmer and its own switch. I didn't buy it for protection, I like the convenience of one plug! That being said, it has helped reduce the hum I get at my drummers hoese. I plan to buy another one for my PA rack. Best thing is that I can get them new for $63.
BTW, a cool idea if you like a little color on your rig, replace the standard 4w or 7w bulbs with colored X-mas bulbs. I picked up red, green, and blue ones for 99¢ a 4-pack at Ace Hardware. I'm using red
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It has 8 outlets, power conditioner(?), LED volt meter, pullout lights w/dimmer and its own switch. I didn't buy it for protection, I like the convenience of one plug! That being said, it has helped reduce the hum I get at my drummers hoese. I plan to buy another one for my PA rack. Best thing is that I can get them new for $63.
BTW, a cool idea if you like a little color on your rig, replace the standard 4w or 7w bulbs with colored X-mas bulbs. I picked up red, green, and blue ones for 99¢ a 4-pack at Ace Hardware. I'm using red
Here's a real life example of why Furmans DON'T condition power.
I moved into a new place and I am getting this weird static/smacking/typing sort of noise through my amps. The noise is made worse when turning up the tweeter.
Both of my amps we're pluged into a Furman PL-Plus. Where's the "power conditioning" I ask?
How do I know it's the power for sure? I didn't until last night. I bought a M-audio interface so I can record into my computer. Sure enough when I pluged in I could here the dreaded noise in my computer (not pluged into the Furman this time). But when I took out the AC adapter and ran off my laptop battery, the noise disappeared. Definitely bad power here.
So Furman's are nice for the convienence of pluging everything into one rackmount strip, but they DO NOT condition power.
I moved into a new place and I am getting this weird static/smacking/typing sort of noise through my amps. The noise is made worse when turning up the tweeter.
Both of my amps we're pluged into a Furman PL-Plus. Where's the "power conditioning" I ask?
How do I know it's the power for sure? I didn't until last night. I bought a M-audio interface so I can record into my computer. Sure enough when I pluged in I could here the dreaded noise in my computer (not pluged into the Furman this time). But when I took out the AC adapter and ran off my laptop battery, the noise disappeared. Definitely bad power here.
So Furman's are nice for the convienence of pluging everything into one rackmount strip, but they DO NOT condition power.
Bob Lee (QSC)
In case you missed it, I work for QSC Audio!
- Jul 3, 2001
- 12,668
- 2,036
- 67
- Disclosures
- Former Technical Communications Developer, QSC Audio
Schwinn said:
That's probably not a power conditioning problem. It's more likely a pin 1 problem.
Dr. PhunkyPants said:
I don't know about you guys, but I picked up an older(new) Furman model for $50. It's light and is rackmountable. I don't see WHY you would want to fiddle around with a power strip that essentially does the same thing.
Bob Lee (QSC)
In case you missed it, I work for QSC Audio!
- Jul 3, 2001
- 12,668
- 2,036
- 67
- Disclosures
- Former Technical Communications Developer, QSC Audio
Schwinn said:
Pin 1 problems are by far the most common causes of hum and buzz in audio systems. Power supply-induced noise is pretty rare in any gear that's reasonably well designed, but people still shell out lots of money for power conditioning and seldom look at the more common causes.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1437349&postcount=10
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showpost.php?p=870518&postcount=9
johnvice said:
So in 26 years, one amp. When was that? No one else seems to have this happen. Was the amp totally ruined?
Sounds like my primary motivation of cleaning up noise hasn't helped (sounds like bad power is not really the cause of most hum), and this thing is only marginally better then my power strip/surge protector/extension cord, which i have to use any way because the furmans power cord barely reaches the floor from a top my cabinets.
I looked at the heftier units, but there's no way i'm going to spend that kind of money ($500) and carry around another 12 lb+ unit.
I only have two items in my rack- an aguilar db 659 and my glockenklang soul top head, so to many cords isn't a problem, either.
So last chance to talk me out of downsizing my rack by 7 lbs and one space. . .
If your getting "hum" in your audio its caused by inductive interference. This can be at any point in the circuit. It can be from the power source itself, your components, cables, even your instrument.
Power conditioners regardless of who makes them and regardless of if they call it a surge protector or a line conditioner or whatever they like to use for marketing essentially do the same thing. They use capacitors ( also called caps by some people ) to control the flow of power.
The larger the caps the more "buffer" for a surge provided. This does not in any way guarantee that signal interference will not pass this point. In order to prevent signals from bridging the input power some use rudimentary isolation circuits to shunt errant signal to ground.
If you really want a power system that gives you complete isolation your going to be spending at least 400-500$ and still only get 80% or so isolation from input. In the computer and telcom industry they get 100% isolation by essentially running everything off of a DC battery system and running isolated power switching units as chargers. ( consumer grade UPS's do this to some extent ) This is however not very plausable for high power music applications. It can be done but not without lugging around way more gear than you would ever want to or even physically be able to in some circumstances.
That said there are some other often overlooked things that you can be aware of to limit the amount of noise in your setups.
1) Make 100% sure your equipment is grounded. Many many places don't have adequate grounds and just because they have 3 prong outlets doesnt mean they are actually wired corectly. And never under any circumstances disconnect your own ground by using a 2 prong to 3 prong adapter. You can take along an AC voltmeter or a ground fault tester ( can get them at home depot ) and plug in to the outlet before you hook up your equipment to see if the ground works before you use it. If you don't have a valid ground your surge protector will not function correctly.
2) Do not coil any of your cables. If you have speaker, power or instrument cables that are too long do not wrap them into a coil when in use to make them look good. You are doing exactly what the name implies "making a coil" this is the basis for all inductive electronics. The more times you wrap the cable into a circle the more inductance your creating and the size of the circle is denoting the size of the inductive waveform your injecting into your sound circuit.
3) Do not run your cables parallel to each other. This creates crosstalk between the cables. Its a good way to get power buzz into your mic cables for instance by taping them together. If you absolutely have to run divergent cables near each other try to keep them a few inches apart. With electromagnetic force as you double the distance between two cables you inverse square the influence they cause each other. Even an inch apart makes a ton of difference. If you absolutely have to run multiple cables in tight bundles at least never mix power with anything else. Also wrap the cables around each other in pairs then wrap the pairs in a helix pattern. This negates much of the inductive crosstalk by canceling out each others interference. If anyone here has ever taken apart high speed copper communication wire like Catergory 5 data cable they will know exactly what I'm talking about.
3) When power and signal cables ( instrument, midi, mic anything that carries payload signal ) meet cross them at a 90 degree angle. This eliminates the potential crosstalk between them. The closer they get to parallel the more they influence each other.
-Rav
Power conditioners regardless of who makes them and regardless of if they call it a surge protector or a line conditioner or whatever they like to use for marketing essentially do the same thing. They use capacitors ( also called caps by some people ) to control the flow of power.
The larger the caps the more "buffer" for a surge provided. This does not in any way guarantee that signal interference will not pass this point. In order to prevent signals from bridging the input power some use rudimentary isolation circuits to shunt errant signal to ground.
If you really want a power system that gives you complete isolation your going to be spending at least 400-500$ and still only get 80% or so isolation from input. In the computer and telcom industry they get 100% isolation by essentially running everything off of a DC battery system and running isolated power switching units as chargers. ( consumer grade UPS's do this to some extent ) This is however not very plausable for high power music applications. It can be done but not without lugging around way more gear than you would ever want to or even physically be able to in some circumstances.
That said there are some other often overlooked things that you can be aware of to limit the amount of noise in your setups.
1) Make 100% sure your equipment is grounded. Many many places don't have adequate grounds and just because they have 3 prong outlets doesnt mean they are actually wired corectly. And never under any circumstances disconnect your own ground by using a 2 prong to 3 prong adapter. You can take along an AC voltmeter or a ground fault tester ( can get them at home depot ) and plug in to the outlet before you hook up your equipment to see if the ground works before you use it. If you don't have a valid ground your surge protector will not function correctly.
2) Do not coil any of your cables. If you have speaker, power or instrument cables that are too long do not wrap them into a coil when in use to make them look good. You are doing exactly what the name implies "making a coil" this is the basis for all inductive electronics. The more times you wrap the cable into a circle the more inductance your creating and the size of the circle is denoting the size of the inductive waveform your injecting into your sound circuit.
3) Do not run your cables parallel to each other. This creates crosstalk between the cables. Its a good way to get power buzz into your mic cables for instance by taping them together. If you absolutely have to run divergent cables near each other try to keep them a few inches apart. With electromagnetic force as you double the distance between two cables you inverse square the influence they cause each other. Even an inch apart makes a ton of difference. If you absolutely have to run multiple cables in tight bundles at least never mix power with anything else. Also wrap the cables around each other in pairs then wrap the pairs in a helix pattern. This negates much of the inductive crosstalk by canceling out each others interference. If anyone here has ever taken apart high speed copper communication wire like Catergory 5 data cable they will know exactly what I'm talking about.
3) When power and signal cables ( instrument, midi, mic anything that carries payload signal ) meet cross them at a 90 degree angle. This eliminates the potential crosstalk between them. The closer they get to parallel the more they influence each other.
-Rav
eric atkinson
"Is our children learning "Is our teachers teachin
I use a furman because we have such really bad thunderstorms here! I dont know how many times i have taken off from band practiced and had the thought go through my head did i un- plug my amp? Dont worry as much now!
