Furman Power Conditioner (PST-8)

If you are purchasing this unit for surge protection for valuable electronics gear. You've made the right decision. I am an experienced electronics engineer and the approach Furman has taken is the best I've seen. Yes, it is expensive and rather bulky, but the build quality is superb and the massive inductor and support electronics simply couldn't fit in a much smaller enclosure. Frankly, I think most people will find little advantage to the linear filtering from an audio line noise perspective, especially with modern gear. That said, buy this thing if, as I have, you've spent a ridiculous amount of money on home theatre gear and don't want the next lightning strike or line-cross to cost you big bucks. I live in a rural area, and power distribution here is a bit on the fingers-crossed side, especially during thunderstorm season and I've experienced some long-term overvoltage issues from crossed lines twice. Fortunately only a clothes dryer motor and some light bulbs were fried by those events, but now that I have finished moving in and installed a ton of expensive gear, I am more comfortable having this unit's auto shutdown on overvoltage protectiion for my stupidly expensive AVR and OLED TV. This is something only a few other high end surge protectors offer. This thing wasn't cheap to build, so the price is quite reasonable. Just buy it.

I was surprised when I received this product. It was heavy, constructed almost completely out of aluminum and had a very solid build. The cable to plug into your outlet is very thick and quite long making it easy to correctly position the device. The plugs are well constructed and you can really feel them grip whatever you plug into them.Furman claims that the device will reduce AC background noise through a linear filtering process. I am using the device to power my audio set-up and I can actually hear the difference. There is more clarity in sound that is coming out of my speakers now.The product is rated to "unlimited joules," so I feel confident that it will protect my equipment from surges.While, $84 seems expensive, this product actually does what it says it will do, is incredibly well-built and a small amount to pay to protect your gear. I recommend this product without hesitation.

I purchased this product to handle my AV gear which was previously powered via an old, overly-taxed wall outlet feeding a few power strips. It does its job admirably and the peace of mind knowing that my electronics are protected is worth the $100 spent. I'm now getting a slightly better image quality from my TV/DirecTV box (better contrast, more vivid colors, deeper blacks and sharper lines.) The biggest improvement, however, is in the sound quality from my audio gear. No joke, everything sounds better. My DAC seems to benefit most from the Furman as they are particularly sensitive to power sources. The resolution is better, imaging and soundstage width/depth have improved and dynamics are better. The bass slam from my subwoofer is really awesome (though my neighbors might disagree!) This is a fine product from a respected company (forget about Monster's overpriced, failure-prone junk.) Highly recommended.

Other reviews discuss the surge suppression offered by the power conditioning and protection offered by this device. However, there was one area I haven't seen much on: signal loss when using the coax connectors. I'm using this to protect my network infrastructure. I probably could have used a UPS instead, but keeping my network up during a power outage is not my goal. Instead, I'm more interested in top-of-the-line surge protection, including the cable connection. Often the cable companies will recommend disconnecting such protection because it degrades the signal too much and impacts your speed. I am happy to report that I have experienced no slowdown (at least within the accuracy range of speedtest.net) and the modem software (Motorola MB7621) reports 0 to 0.3 dB drop in SNR and now apparent drop in power. (Note: for most providers, you want SNR to be between 30 - 50 dB...I was around 38.1 dB on average before adding the filter, 37.9 dB after, so still comfortably within range for my setup. I should also note that, while I could not find a spec for expected signal loss for the Furman, on a Panamax (sister company to Furman) the rated loss is < 0.5dB so this is likely the same filter circuit).

Easy setup, plugged it in and it's working without issue. I'm concerned about it's integrity though especially due to the nightmare of packaging it came in. The outside box was completely beat up to the point it couldn't be stacked, and twisted in strange ways, making it look like there was no way the item inside was intact. Opening this box revealed that the plastic casing on the product packaging was busted through, and the power conditioner inside was exposed.Despite this, I examined the power conditioner and found no signs of damage or scratches whatsoever. No rattle shaking it or anything. Plugged it in and it works perfectly. So, while the packaging was horrible, the fact this device survived it somehow really shows it's good build quality, and makes my confident it won't break easily down the line.

Seems to work.