[Doublej]

How does one go about comparing Series Mode power filtering offerings? I ask because I just realized that Furman offers it in their PST-8 for about half the price of Zero Surge, Surge-X and Brick Wall.

[rollo]

  Obtain both and compare. Make sure there is a 30 day return policy.


charles

[RDavidson]

I'm not so sure Furman offers Series Mode Protection, at least not in the PST-8. I think there's some creative marketing going on. For them, SMP stands for Series Multi-stage Protection. And here's how they describe it on their website : Furman’s SMP circuit which incorporates Linear Filtering Technology (LiFT) and a high current TVZ-MOV to insure that any electronic device (including televisions, projectors, CD-DVD players, or computers) is fed clean, filtered AC power.

So it sounds like there is a "series" of 2-3 protection features they call "multi-stage" protection. Take note that they say they're using an MOV also.

[Doublej]

They say that SMP provides non-sacrificial protection without ground contamination which sounds like what Zero Surge et al do in principle but then Furman adds MOV protection too.

https://www.furmanpower.com/series-multi-stage-protection/

And if you look at the fancy graph on the page they claim it does a better job of blocking overvoltage than the competition if I understand it correctly.

All for a lot less $$. So where's the catch? Apple like premiums from the big three or something half as good for half the price?

And they say it this is in the 8 and 8-dig on the Other Specs tab.

https://www.furmanpower.com/product/15a-8-outlet-surge-suppressor-strip-w-smp-lift-and-evs/

[Big Red Machine]

I've owned the PST-8 and it was essentially worthless for noise reduction. You get what you pay for.

[RDavidson]

Interesting. They don't state they use series mode protection anywhere which is odd, but they definitely allude that they use it and perhaps have improved upon it...then gave it a similar name. I believe the reason other manufacturers, including Audioquest, have series mode protection is that Zero Surge's patent ran out and thus they don't have to pay a licensing fee to use it. This will drive the prices for this technology down ; Good for us consumers. It's not that Zero Surge or SurgeX are charging wine prices for beer technology. They literally owned the market for the technology, but that's no longer the case. I think we may see the prices of their products come down a bit, though they have been the go-to for the pro industry. Furman certainly caters to both the pro industry and domestic use as well. Anyway...I don't understand the point of using MOVs and series mode protection. It's a little confusing as SMP is employed so that MOVs aren't needed...at least that's what I've seen elsewhere. I know redundancy in engineering can be a good thing, but in this case I don't know. Maybe Furman is doing this just to be different or offer something "special" they can put their marketing spin on? Or perhaps this is something they did to get around Zero Surge's patent? This kind of thing happens all the time. Maybe this is what makes their graph look better too? I don't know. But it does appear they have a legitimately good, non-sacrificial, safety technology paired with a sacrificial safety technology in their product line.

Thanks for the info. I have an old Furman PST-8 Digital. I can't remember exactly when I got it, but it has to be around 10 years old now. This would've been made back when Zero Surge's patent was still in effect. However, it says right on the side of the unit "series multi-stage protection." So, it would appear that Furman's series mode protection (their version of it) is not new...but apparently is new info to us.

[RDavidson]

Curious and doing more digging I came across this on Audiogon. I didn't do any fact checking, but there seems to be a story here between Furman and Zero Surge.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/furman-smp-is-not-real-series-mode-surge-technology

[mocenigo]

  Obtain both and compare. Make sure there is a 30 day return policy.

Nonsense. All these products need a burn in period of at least 32 days!

 Roberto

[Doublej]

Curious and doing more digging I came across this on Audiogon. I didn't do any fact checking, but there seems to be a story here between Furman and Zero Surge.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/furman-smp-is-not-real-series-mode-surge-technology

Great find. Thanks for solving the mystery. The reason for my asking and confusion is that the Zero Surge patent has expired so Furman could now copy the circuit as desired.