 Fantastic product |
| Review Date: February 12, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Eric, Roseville, CA |
Purchased this for my home theater and the H15 has worked flawlessly since day one. I'm amazed that my home power is actually fairly stable, the filter mainly kicks in when I start to power everything up. The unit is extremely easy to setup and looks good too. It's nice to see how much power is being used and when there are any drops or spikes. There is a slight clicking sound, but it's hardly noticable unless you're right next to the unit. The display is dimmable which is good for dark rooms/setups.
I purchased the H15 wanting to make sure I had enough headroom for all of my home theater. Based on my initial calculations of power usage, I would have come close to actually maxing out the unit, but in daily use, I use no more than 40% of the capacity of H15. This includes a 32" TV, HD projector, retractable screen, receiver, DVD player, DVR and WII unit, network switch and remote control center.
If you're building your home theater and considering a power conditioner, you absolutely cannot go wrong with the H10 or H15. I've worked with APC products for years both on the home and commerical (data center) side and their products are very reliable and cost effective, especially considering the value of what you are protecting. |
Great Product, reliable; pure sine wave output; lots of plugins; looks cool; great customer support.
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| Review Date: August 9, 2009 |
| Reviewer: hanshan mtn., WDC metro area |
...Love it. Months and many thunderstorms later, I still love it. APC has great customer support too - great for answering user and technical questions. I have my stereo, wifi, high quality blu-ray player, cable tv receiver/dvr box, and expensive Pioneer Kuro Elite flat panel on this power conditioner - because, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." I had gotten a good flat panel tv and other equipment and wanted to protect the electronics from both surges and sags... Since it's not a PC but only my set of AV entertainment equipment, I didn't need a power conditioner with a battery backup; only needed a good quality power conditioner.
...I chose it because 1) output is a pure sine wave, protects realtime against both sags and surges (both can cause harm to electronics) 2) quality of engineering/product 3) didn't need battery backup for this need 4)has lots of places to plug in on the back 5) sits on my entertainment shelf unit with my stereo and other stuff and looks beautiful (nice tiny blue status lights that go orange in the event of a fault, like during a thunderstorm) 6) size of a vcr player or receiver, not big heavy thing.
...I've watched this operate during bad thunderstorms and it does react to and report both sags and surges. There's a voltage reading which is nice too. It automatically returned to normal when the house power returned to normal. Before, I unplugged my expensive equipment when leaving because I don't have whole-house protection yet.
...Sags and surges (small or large) are among the main causes for electronic equipment problems - solid state and other components over time are affected by these. Investing the money in this increases likelihood of long happy lifetime later. Don't get the cheap stuff - not worth it. Stick to APC or Tripp-Lite.
...I found that APC had a better website than Tripp-Lite, and their customer support was great for answering questions or deciding which product. This is not just typical sales support that just reads the box same as you can - their phone staff I talked with twice during product selection and later during setup (which was easy) included some technical understanding. How refreshing, and smart competitive investment on APC's part.
....My next step is $80-100 whole-house surge protector that goes on the fuse box - one hour or less for electrician to install - if you have a nearby lightening hit or other cause of a big surge on your lines (not common unless you live in Florida, but it can and does happen), this will stop the surge from proceeding thru your house lines to burn out your PC and entertainment stuff. Have the electrician put it on the lines that feed those devices. If you live where there's a LOT of lightening strikes, then get a more expensive, resettable unit.
...But even if I already had a whole-house surge protector, I'd still have this APC shelf unit for my entertainment equipment... conditions the power that is delivered to the equipment so it is clean - steady and never drops or rises suddenly. Picked this one after reading many happy reviews by both consumers and also highly technical people versed in electronics who bench tested its technical functionality (on techhead and audio/video-phile test & review websites).
... APC had a range of product choices in power protection and/or power backup.
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A must buy for anyone with a home theater!
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| Review Date: August 17, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Andrew Dunn, |
| Great product. Have had it for over a year. It's amazing to see how many times it has to balance the power coming from the wall outlet...especially during the summer months in the south when all the power is going to Air Conditioners so the APC has to step things up. This is definitly a must buy for anyone with a good home theater setup. |
Great Power Conditioner!
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| Review Date: December 21, 2009 |
| Reviewer: WPB Consulting, Cary, NC |
Already a long-time customer of various PowerMax power protection and conditioning products, I found myself in the market for something beefy for a renovated home theater room. The APC H15 fits the bill, perfectly. At 1440VA (12 Amps), it has plenty of headroom to supply clean power to my AV rack with room to spare. Some of the features that drew me to this unit were:
1) Price - through Amazon, this was a bargain.
2) Isolation - Having 12 outlets across discrete banks of isolated outputs ensures the more noise-sensitive devices can be isolated from others. Separate supply banks for digital, analog, and high current devices are a necessity for the variety of devices in today's home theater.
3) Regulation - The buck/boost and monitoring capability of this unit is unique at this price point. Probably not as important as the noise filtering and surge protection features, but nice nonetheless. Most power supply designs in AV consumer electronics are relatively forgiving of input voltage fluctuation, but providing a regulated input keeps things running smoothly.
4) Protection - Having experienced previous surge damage, protection is something I take very seriously. With whole house surge suppression combined with point of use protection, I am a big fan of surge suppression and of the school that you can't have too much. This unit has a max rating of 5200 joules with a let through voltage of <40V. The joule rating is the amount of energy absorbed, and the let through value is very important. This describes what voltage gets through to your equipment while the H15 is suppressing a 6000V surge! UL indicates the minimum value for compliance is 330V, so the H15 exceeds this handily.
A few nits:
The display and interface is a little 1990's combined with 2008 blue LED craze. My coffee maker has a better resolution display. The display at this price point could be larger and more informative. One must use the buttons to navigate to each display value. I would have rather seen a better display that shows all the status info at a glance. I probably wouldn't mind as much, but this sits at the bottom of my rack, and I have to stoop to press the button and read the blocky, low-res LCD, and I'm not getting any younger.
Also, most AV equipment these days have network connections, so surge protection for CAT6 would round out the protection offered on the back of the H15.
All-in-all, this is a great power conditioner and I recommend it for home theater installations.
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Great Unit
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| Review Date: January 22, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Happy Shopper, |
I wanted to give an idea of the amount of power different items pull when in use, as I thought I needed more VA than I actually did. I used my manuals that came with all my stuff to determine the proper VA rating I would need on a line conditioner. I went with the 1500VA unit because that's what I thought I needed for the most power intensive activity. turns out that activity(Playing xbox) only uses about 45% of the units VA rating ~650-700VA.
The approximate readings as displayed by the unit:
Idle DVR Only - ~50 VA(~3%)
Plasma TV(TCP50G10)+Receiver+DVR=~300VA(~20%)
TV+Receiver+DVR+XBOX 360=~650-700VA(~45%)
TV+Receiver+DVR+PS3(40gig)=~430VA(~30%)
*Note that I have a powered sub-woofer that is not connected. The wife wanted it hidden in a corner away from the TV. So it is plugged in separately. So if you have a sub connected these readings will be higher.
In short I could have went with the less expensive H110 model which does the exact same thing only has a lower VA rating and no LCD. While the LCD is a nice touch and looks cool. It really serves no purpose other than to let you know the input/output voltage. Also makes it easier to adjust the limited settings. All and all very happy with the H15. It will allow me to change out items in the future without worrying about taxing the system. I'll know more about how well it regulates power probably in the summer. I suspect the power grid here in TN gets stressed.
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