‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.
After exactly 13 years and 11 months – to the day! – my Furman power conditioner appears to have died without warning.
Table of Contents
What Is A Power Conditioner?
Power Distribution
For home hobbyists like me, a power conditioner mostly is a convenient way of distributing power to rack-mounted gear (like my Kemper, Axe-FX 3, and audio interface) and my pedalboard:
- one power cable comes into the rack, from the mains to the power conditioner
- (up to) 10 power cables go from the power conditioner to all the other pieces of gear in the rack
It would be a complete pain if I had to plug every piece of gear directly into the mains. That would be a lot of cables … and a lot of plug sockets needed.
Professional Features
I believe that all power conditioners also come with surge protection circuits too, so that they will trip to protect your more expensive rack-mounted units.
Some power conditioners (like my dead Furman) also come with added protection against unstable voltage levels. This is useful if you’re playing live, where the power supply may be somewhat unstable.
And some power conditioners (like my dead Furman) also include some circuitry to filter out noise being carried by the power supply. It’s hard to say how effective this is for us home hobbyists.
Troubleshooting
Initial Symptom
I turned my power conditioner off in the morning, to go and each lunch. Came back late afternoon to record some more audio demos for the blog … and the Furman didn’t light up at all.
And, of course, none of the other items in the rack powered on at all either.
Hit The Reset Button, No Joy
My Furman power conditioner has a ‘reset’ button on the back of the unit. If the unit’s surge protection trips, the idea is to click this ‘reset’ button to get the unit working again.
I’ve tried clicking the reset button multiple times – both with the unit powered off and powered on – but it didn’t solve my problem. The Furman still appears to be dead.
Checked The Cable, Checked The Wall Outlet
Next step was to try a different power cable (while clicking the reset button again, just in case the unit has tripped). That didn’t make a difference.
I also tried a different power cable into a different wall outlet. That didn’t make a difference either.
Unracked The Unit, Repeated The Steps
I also pulled the Furman unit from my rack. I couldn’t see any obvious damage to the unit at all.
I then repeated the steps above. With the unit out of the rack, it was a lot easier to try different cables and wall outlets.
No joy. To all intents and purposes, my old Furman power conditioner is currently dead.
Impact
This impacts me in two ways:
- I can’t record any audio demos, because I can’t power my audio interface.
- I’m very limited in what I can play, because I can’t power my Axe-FX 3 or my pedalboard.
Let’s not get carried away here: this is a mild inconvenience.
I still have a few physical amps that I can use. I could dig out some IEC cables and plug devices directly into the mains if needed.
And there’s always my acoustic guitar to fall back on.
Replacing The Power Conditioner
Choosing A Replacement
My old power conditioner was a Furman PL-PLUS C E. These appear to still be in production. However, UK prices are … difficult to justify, shall we say … while it’ll take a week to get one for a more reasonable price from Thomann.
While I’d prefer a like-for-like replacement, I don’t need most of the features on this unit. All I really need is the power distribution and surge protection.
So instead, I ordered a Furman M-10XE power conditioner from Andertons. Much cheaper than another PL-PLUS unit, with much faster delivery. And if it isn’t suitable, I can return it for a refund, and order the PL-PLUS from Thomann.
The Replacement Works!
Good news: the Furman M-10XE power conditioner solves the problem. I put it into the rack, re-cabled all the power, and everything is back up and running.
When the old Furman PL-PLUS C E died, nothing else got damaged (as far as I can tell). That is a big relief.
The Replacement Is Smaller And Lighter
The new Furman M-10XE is about half the depth of my old PL-PLUS C E. It’s also noticeably lighter in the hand.
This’ll be because it lacks most of the features of my old PL-PLUS C E. For home use, I think this will be fine.
Final Thoughts
Ugh. My old power conditioner failed just after I’d done the majority of my Christmas shopping. Not great timing. At least there’s a budget option available. I would have found it quite painful if I had to buy a like-for-like replacement PL-PLUS unit.
On the plus side, I got 14 years out of my old unit. It must have been one of the oldest electronic devices in the house. It proved to be very good value, especially for how much it cost back in 2011.