Furman Power Conditioners

[OlinMusic]

When I went to buy my Furman PL-8 Plus (I think), the salesman at GC told me it was all smoke and mirrors - a POS that DID nothing. They kept pushing me to the WAYYYYYYYYYYY overpriced MONSTER model. I have also gigged a lot with a Variac.

As you heard me whine the other day, I had my first blow out that I am POSITIVE related to a power spike, the amp has been fine exc for a blown fuse at a rehearsal studio.

I feel like the Furman protects me. My place has really bad power. I highly doubt I need a $200 - $300 power conditioner. I got mine cheap, and it is one of the mid-level Furman models.

Is the Furman just a placebo?

 

[RW James]

Re: Furman Power Conditioners

The church I play at is plagued with power issues. We've had equipment damaged. But our sound system is protected by Furmans... and my gear runs through my own Furman. I've never had a problem and felt I was protected.

One time I forgot the Furman. The overhead lights overloaded and blew a breaker sending a spike through the whole system. Fortunately I didn't see any damage - but it blew out a light bulb on my music stand light. I've used the Furman everyday since - it could have hit my amp.

You have to be careful with salesman like that. It pays to know your product before going in.

btw: I have the low end Furman - works great.

 

[aleclee]

Re: Furman Power Conditioners

Furman power conditioners are good for preventing damage to rack gear & FX caused by power surges. It also lowers your noise floor a bit.

IMO, it's a better investment to spend a bit more money and get a voltage regulator since, in addition to surge protection, they also keep your tube amps' tone consistent by providing consistant voltage.

 

[tone4days]

Re: Furman Power Conditioners

i agree with alec, except for his use of the term 'a bit' ... my investigation showed that voltage regulation cost substantially more (both as a percentage and in real dollars) than regular old furman protection ... that said, it does ALOT more and has a considerable positive effect on tone and reliability for tube gear

no need to spend more for monster ... in fact, i am told that furman and rackrider are identical under the hood but i do not have a rack rider to open up and compare to my furman, which i am quite happy with ...

 

[V!N]

Re: Furman Power Conditioners

Your cheap one is basically an RF filter you could buy at your local hardwarestore for a couple of bucks. So in a way, you did get a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overpriced monster model.

If the package I'm expecting was indeed shipped and indeed shipped to my address, I'll have an amp up and running pretty soon and it's going to get protection that actually does something, a Furman Voltage Regulator.
I play a lot of (open air) festivals and usually, that means being connected to a huge diesel generator that won't give you the steady number of volts you need. The Voltage Regulator will give you a constant supply of the number of Volts you need (230 in my case), no matter how many you're getting from the outlet.

Would you buy condoms for two cents a piece if you know they were leaky ? Or would you rather spend a bit more on something that actually works.

My two cents.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Furman Power Conditioners

Yeah,

The Furman PL-8's are basically overpriced surge strips with some (wonky at best) EMI/RFI filtering.

They'll most likely protect the gear from something massively bad like a crazy surge or a lighting strike but really...they don't do that much more then a $7 surge strip which also has a circuit breaker.

I hate to say it, but the Monster stuff actually is a better buy if you're after and in need of that kinda thing...massive protection and EMI/RFI filtering that's actually worth something and spending $2000 + on something like an Eqitech is just out of the question.

The Furman AR-117 regulator is also a pretty gnarly piece of kit. Those are a solid buy...

But there's a HUGE difference between power conditoning & regulated power...

If you can easily lift the thing with one hand then it's probably not doing much.

You need massive torridial transformers & filter caps for any kind of "real" power regulation.