Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions EP500 Noise/Surge Suppression

Hello,

First post here but I have been an Axiom EP500 owner for nearly 2 years now and love it! I should have done this sooner but I need to buy a good quality surge protector/noise suppressor for this unit and wanted to know what other Axiom users prefer. I have a Panamax for my front end. I get noise from the microwave occasionally and would love something to stop that as well.

Thanks!

Dave

I plug my ep600 and twin ep350v3's right into the outlet, I would not use a surge/noise suppressor, but that is me. Most high end Amp and Speaker companies will tell you the same.

I use a Monster sub outlet for my sub and a surge protector on my Rotel amp.

A year ago I asked Axiom the same question for my EP-500 and this was Brent's reply:

"Check out Belkin, APC or Tripplite surge protectors, all are superb units. Look to a joule count of 700 or more."

Panamax Max 2 Sub has gotten a good review from Kal Rubinson of Stereophile. I am using a similar product at present.

John

Thanks to everyone that replied to questions in HT! I am in the beginning stages of building my first HT system and now researching surge protector/surpressors. Maybe I'm over-analizing
the topic but it seems crucial to choose the right product for your equipment used.http://computer.howstuffworks.com/surge-protector4.htm I just finished reading this info and would like to know what you guys recommend. What kind of protection should I use for my Sony Bravia xbr4 and HT electronics? Many companies introduce alot of hype into their "high end" products to get you to spend unnecessary $.

A few details that sound important are chosing products with UL ratings as a transient voltage surpressor, high joules(energy absorbant/dissipation ratings) of 700 or more and a protector with an indicator light. I also found the only protection against lightning is to unplug your electronics. I am now finding that every aspect of chosing and building my 1st HT system is very tedious and takes a great deal of research, oh and $$$$. Well I'm committed and will be setting up an Epic 60.500 with a Denon 3808ci. I'm starting with all wiring, cables and accessories then will be diving into the main course. Thanks for all replies.

demetman

Your speaker & amp combo is going to be awesome! Awesome sounding speakers and the usefulness of the 3808i.

I bought this one for $70 some dollars because it had a few places for coax and a couple of phone and Ethernet jacks. HD Satelite Receiver has two coax coming into it. I'm not worried about any noise reduction, I just know that funky power can come in on any wire from the outside, not just the electrical outlets.

I have my sub and receiver plugged directly into a separate outlets so they don't get strained sharing power with all the other devices on the power strip. The Denon is supposed to have a pretty well protected power supply built in so I hope it will be OK.

I agree with your lightning theory. It can be so powerful it can jump right through an open protection circuit. Not much can stop it. Some simple designs work pretty well, like the one that hopefully protects your phone line on the outside of your house, but even these can't stop a big blast.

When I worked for the Dept of Health, the hospital put in a new parking system with 4 kiosks and 2 booths. All were connected in a ring configuration for data. Each one had a supposedly 'lightning proof' protector on each side of the unit so if one got hit by lightning, it would protect the others.

For some reason these things were like lightning magnets for a while. (Perhaps the ring of underground cable around the grounds does something to build up charge, dunno.) In the three or more years I worked there, it got hit by about lightning about 5 times. First three times a single hit took out every single kiosk. Circuit boards were unrecognizable charred masses, including the protection pieces.

I gained a lot of respect for lightning. Respect for that kiosk company, not so much. I hear they put in heftier protectors and did something that reduced the chance of lightning strikes since then (10 dollar ground rod maybe? )

Absolutely. I had a router interface fry a couple of years ago when a tree took out the power/telco lines. One thing that I've never been able to find out, though, is which sorts of interfaces the RJ and coax connections on these surge suppressors are good for -- eg. they're only expecting POTS, or if they'll do appropriate things with gigE, ISDN BRI, etc.

Any problems with ground loops?

What are you referring to by " if they'll do appropriate things with gigE, ISDN BRI ?"

An RJ45 jack will be pinned out ok for POTS, Ethernet of all speeds, and ISDN. Aside from it's promise of surge protection, all it really has to do is maintain an electrical connection between your two patch cords.

Now re. the cable inside from the [in jack] to the [out jack], I would hope that the connecting cable inside between the in and the out is twisted correctly to maintain shielding up to at least CAT5 standards, maybe even CAT6 (either might be pushing it.) But honestly, I'm not sure. I wouldn't be surprised to see straight pairs.

Even if wasn't, the very tiny distance from the in jack to the out jack probably wouldn't result in enough distance to degrade the signal. Although, maybe being in close proximity to so many other power cords introduces a problem? Damn it! Stop making me paranoid. LOL!

Perhaps our local electrical engineer can fill us in.

The properties of the devices they use for managing nasties have to match the application. They can't use the same MOVs for Ethernet for example as for POTS. The MOVs have parasitic capacitance that can attenuate the Ethernet signal. It's quite challenging actually to provide cost-effective, space-conscious, low let-through protection for high speed signals.

Mojo describes what concerns me more than distance/shielding issues. When looking at a product description online, it's often difficult to tell if the RJ's are 4/6/8 way, and it's a good bet that the manufacturer has never heard of ISDN. Hopefully I'll never have to use ISDN again, but it's still unclear if it's safe to run 100/1000 ethernet -- not to mention DS1/T1 -- through one of these things.