Power Smoother Conditioner Shampooer

[TheHeavy]

So I just bought this cuz i got an amazing deal....
did I do good?
http://www.monstercable.com/productdisplay.asp?pin=4887

My buddy just "blew" a Savage Macht 6, a handwired Marshall 18w and a Dr. Z Maz 18 w/reverb all in 3 weeks. Im worried about my stuff, the jams space is in his basement

anyone own one of these?

 

[deeval]

Its good conditioner but not the best thing to use in live gig,s you would probably want a good Voltage regulator,also your buddy blowing,3 amps is something I would definitely look at seriously before I would plug another amp into that line!!!

 

[Dave_C]

For that price, I'd seriously consider something like the Furman AR Series regulators, which not only have all that filtering and suppression, but also regulation, which is a circuit that supplies a constant voltage to the amp. One of the biggest power problems, even in most homes, is widely drifting voltage levels, which can seriously throw off the bias point on your amp.

 

[TheHeavy]

i paid 250 brand new

 

[Dave_C]

i paid 250 brand new

I guess that's a pretty darn good price compared to MSRP, but as an EE, I have a hard time justifying even that price for something that's really just a very high quality power strip. For my needs, I really gotta' have the regulation.

 

[TheHeavy]

thats fair and ur probably right, if im gonna be spending this much already, even 250, i may as well take the plunge and buy the right one.

I bought this on a whim and can return it in 30days, aallll goooddd

 

[gstan]

If these amp blows are occurring in your bud's basement the first order of bidness is to plug in one of those little yeller circuit testers and check to see whether there is a wiring fault.

 

[Dave_C]

thats fair and ur probably right, if im gonna be spending this much already, even 250, i may as well take the plunge and buy the right one.

I bought this on a whim and can return it in 30days, aallll goooddd

Cool. I just wanted to give you my honest opinion. I'm not sure the simple filters/conditioners really do much to improve tone. Tube amps already rectify and filter input power to begin with, so I'm not sure how much AC line noise actually gets through. And, even if they do remove some noise, what good is perfectly clean power if the level is 100V and your amp was biased at 120V?

Of course, surge protection is a good thing, but that's mainly a protection feature, not an ongoing tone enhancement feature. What really kills tone from venue to venue is line level fluctuations and only a regulator can address that issue.

 

[Dave_C]

FWIW- A small fluctuation in wall voltage can make huge differences in bias levels and in turn negatively effect the tone of a tube amp.

Yep, a 10V change at the wall is about 40V at the power amp!