Furman PL-PLUS DMC Power Conditioner with Voltmeter / AMMeter

I'd been hemming and hawing about a mobile power conditioner. I lead a few acoustic groups, and we do a good deal of outdoor parties at private homes. I try to get power from the laundry room, but it can be iffy, with clients worrying about the cables passing through their flower beds, etc.Anyway, one night I turned on my amp, and smoke poured out of my custom made speaker! Lucky for me, we have a strong PA, hehe. Even more luckily, I'm an endorser, so I got a great deal on a new driver, provided I put the speaker in myself.After going through that agony, I realized I MUST have a power conditioner. A voltage spike probably blew out the voice coil. You know - The little pop when you turn it on? Probably got a power surge and alot more than a pop!This unit will absorb just about any surge you get. Plus - It's got a Voltmeter AND an Ammeter, so you can check the line voltage, and see how many amps you're pulling down. It also seems to filter some of the line noise we always get, and eliminates using those silly power strips that always get underfoot. It's got enough sockets to hold our two PA's, mixer, 2 amps, wireless receivers, etc.The best thing? I don't even know when it's on! No POP at all! I agonized over spending so much, but it's insurance - When you realize how equipment it's protecting, it's silly to get anything less.

The outlet spacing is thoughtful. The front panel outlet is great. The optional Furman GN-LED gooseneck lamp to use in the back of the unit works perfectly. The voltage and current meter is accurate for steady state, however it seems to show an average over a few seconds, so don't depend on it to show you instantaneous highs or lows. The front panel LED lights are much better than the incandescent lamps my previous power conditioners and power filters used to have. This is a heavy unit that is really a power conditioner, not just a high frequency filter or spike protector. The output waveform is really a sine wave and it gracefully shuts down in over and under power conditions without damage to itself or your gear. I have a variac and I tested the under power shutdown. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. I also had mine open because I replaced the integrated power cord with a 50' cable. The construction and quality of components on the inside is first class. Take a look at the insides of this and the insides of the inexpensive power bars and you'll immediately be glad you bought this unit.

Furman is a brand-name I've researched on the internet and found they are very popular among musicians to protect their high-end equipment. I bought a smaller Furman unit to protect my water ionizer unit from Power spikes and voltage drops and it's been working very well. I purchased this unit to protect a small but extensive computer setup with multi monitors and sensitive processing equipment. This will not be used in a conventional sense but will basically be protecting the rig I built for coding and programming. The unit is unique in that it has dual LED lights which can be turned on or off, dimmed, and pulled out and repositioned. This is not a feature I will actually be using but it is a nice one to have for things I may come up with in the future. You can't go wrong buying this name brand as these units are meant to last a long time.

I had to buy a tinted plastic to apply over the LED read out. It makes no sense why the display cant be turned off or down.

I have used several Furman Products over the years as has anyone working in professional sound reinforcement and I have to say this is the nicest example I have used. It is built like a tank, has all the right features in exactly the right place, and provides clean safe power to my digital board. The other thing quickly noted was that the bright LED pull out lights can easily be adjusted throughout the night without the finger pain historically experienced with the old incandescent units. The meter works great and though overkill for many it is nice to know precisely what an unfamiliar room or generator is providing. Finally, it is so nice to have the back side BNC light connector. I use this in a 6 space rack case so large scale illumination solutions aren't practical and having one hand (or mouth) with a flash light is just tedious, I added a LED gooseneck and it works great for patch changes in dark place which most seem to be. It took me a wile to decide to go for the PL-Plus DMC but, I'm glad I did and I would do it again.

It did its job. Saved my barefoot footprints which I leave on 24/7, lesson learned, I will power them off every night, but the PL Plus DMC saved them from an outage. However the device now shows a voltage range from 108-136 and it will shut off randomly now. I dont know if the unit is now damaged from the outage or the wiring in my house may have been fried somewhere.... or the utility energy company needs to fix something on their part. Regardless.... the furman worked and did what it was supposed to, protect my expensive gear from permanent damage. I wished this had AVR built in though. The P1800AR is way too expensive but I understand why it is so. I'll give it 5 stars for safely shutting down my monitors like 3x now since the outage.

Solid, nice lighting, and seems good for the current price they are going for. To the customer (RT) that complained about the meter being too bright - you CAN dim it. There are 3 levels of brightness, achieved by holding down the button to the right of the display.