High end UPS for Expensive audio eequipments

If we’re talking purely on the basis of investment protection, Series Mode Surge suppressors are the only one’s I truly trust.

The technology is licensed by PS Audio, Surge-X and Furman, but Furman tends to have the lower prices.

A UPS often introduces more problems than they solve, and they are no guarantee of protection from surges.

Best,


ERik

akg_ca is unfortunately incorrect when it comes to surge protection. A lightning bolt, or induced voltage from an EMF will happily go through most modern equipment's power supplies.

HOWEVER, some is going to be more sensitive than others. Tube amps and pre-s for instance are more tolerant due to naturally high working voltages to begin with. Tubes are easy to replace too. :)  Devices with CPU's to control displays, remotes and EQ however are most at risk.

It is however up to a great deal of debate as to whether or not improving the AC signal will have any subjective effect, and many power supply designers feel that so long as the voltages are within spec (110V-130VAC) the user will not be able to perceive any difference.

Personally I find the addition of Furman's LiFT to really open up the treble.  Maybe I'm high. :)  I'm no power conditioner cognoscenti though,

Best,


Erik

600V is what I would consider an over-voltage, not a surge. A surge can be kilovolts, though in some cases very low current potential. However that is all it takes to fry silicon. These same circuits that you are touting as being good surge protection is absent in most power supplies (with the exception of PCs).  I would also need to research this as I believe this may apply to electric / motor driven appliances as opposed to electronics. In any event, there's usually a time limit for exposure.

SMP devices will clamp well below that, around 200-300V I believe, but that's besides the point.

Um, your comments about series mode protection are in contradiction with the UL surge protection ratings, and your insistence on relying on Joule ratings means you don’t understand the physics involved. No current = no joules. The same for your ridiculous claims of undersized MOV’s. I’m kind of done with discussing this with you, since you seem to be unwilling to do your homework and are using a dual standard. Of course manufacturers will hype their product, whether they make series or traditional surge protectors.

Have a nice day.

Erik

@westom

Please describe which power supply design you are talking about? I haven’t done an exhaustive study, but after examining say, two dozen devices, including DAC’s, mostly amplifiers and preamps, headphone amps, etc., I have yet to see a single one that included "robust" surge protection. I will occasionally see UL listed "noise" filters which are not the same thing, so I really would like to see what you are talking about. The one location where I have seen consistently and extensive use of surge protection is in PC power supplies.

Westom, you are also misinformed about the latest surge technology. Series mode does not connect to ground. They use a very large coil (compared to most surge protectors) instead which becomes the high voltage point in the circuit, and dissipate surge energy as heat instead of current. Their UL listing proves the effectiveness, and the normal "joule" rating becomes irrelevant.

A ground circuit is not needed in an SMP, so the quality of the ground for this application is no more needed than for GFCI circuits. As for your parallel devices being "harmless" we had about 2 dozen of these "harmless" protection devices (MOV’s?) in surge strips flame when a glitch in the local switching station occurred. They did protect the systems attached, but the speed of the surge was a lot slower than lightning.

But the cost / value item is another issue. I find the Furman devices inexpensive enough, and my gear precious enough to worry about it.

Best,


Erik

@cleeds I think @westom is talking about how traditional surge protection works, which is to short over-voltages to ground.

I should note, just for being complete, that the series-mode protection is (by design) a low-pass filter so it works great on power lines but if applied to Cable TV or satellite signals it would block the signal too, so it's application is limited to AC line protection.

Because of this, units for home have multiple filtering "modes" for POTS (copper phone), LAN, Cable, etc. even if they use series-mode for power.

Best,


Erik

@westom

Like everything else in this discussion, your reading is half-baked. UL 1449 includes testing for effectiveness as a surge protection device in addition to life safety issues like not starting fires after a surge. Do some reading before posting.

Series mode surge protection devices have the best (lowest) UL tested "let through voltage" or VPR for test surges. meaning that during tetsting the equipment being protected would suffer a much lower voltage than with MOV parallel devices.

This is why fairly reliable companies such as Furman, SurgeX, and PS Audio rely on them for their best protection, and have NO MOV’s or joule ratings (for AC protection) and have no sacrificial components (in the AC protection).  Again, if you had bothered going through the design, or reading the spec you wrote so eloquently incorrectly about you'd know this.



Best,


Erik