Power strip recommendations


My Panamax power strip with surge protection quit working after about 15 years or more of use. What would you recommend for a replacement? This will be for my home theatre system (receiver, TV, BluRay, etc.). I don't need surge protection or noise filtering. Just good solid construction, tight receptacles, heavy gauge wiring.

 

Thanks,

Mike

 

 

fundsgon

I wrote about modern surge protectors here.  The only independent surge testing I know of is covered here, and you'll be surprised who wins.

 

 

Erik,

For sound quality, MOV or series mode? My experience with Panamax MOV type SP is not good. 

From the blog and website:

The Furman PST-8 SMP offers series mode protection plus very low let through voltage at a reasonable price.

The Tripp Lite TLP1208SAT doesn't specify surge protection mode so I assume that it uses MOV's. 

OP:

I’ll answer this in practical and technical ways.

The series mode protectors add noise filtering that starts at 3 kHz, right in the midrange. Other protectors can’t start till 100kHz or so. MOVs by themselves have no sound but often are complemented by additional EMI/RFI filters (again, 100kHz or higher).

So the power purist would say MOV’s are best since they have no sound and are not in the circuit until an overload but that's only looking at the coin shaped MOV itself, not the additional EMI/RFI circuits that often come with them.

For me, given I live in a lightning prone area, series mode is my standard for my audio gear. The argument that purists make that it’s in the way of the power delivery just doesn’t ring true for me. They are transparent at 60 Hz which is what you want.

Trplite are MOV . Brickell units are essentially Zerosurge units just at a slightly higher price. Both are series mode, and though they have RFI/EMI filtering neither will degrade sound as you had with the Panwmax.i use ZeroSurge un8ts in both my main and 2nd audio systems (listed on my virtual system page) ,and another with my TV.