APC S15 Review
Dear Gary:
I subscribed a few months ago and have found some of the reviews to be excellent. Other articles and reviews have been quite disappointing. The APC S15 review by Doug Blackburn is an example. The review has very little technical detail. The specifications listed do not indicate any of the important surge suppression information, nor are there any measurements to support or quantify the claims of improved noise floor or AC line noise reduction.
Additionally, he states that keeping fans running after shutdown is “critical to extending the life of expensive projection lamps.” This is an often-repeated belief that I suspect he has not really checked out. Perpetuating such conventional wisdom, which is very possibly wrong, without doing some research is a disservice to your readers. I have discussed the matter with tech reps and engineers at Sony, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Yamaha, Runco, Marantz®, and OSRAM. They all say the same thing. It certainly does not hurt to keep the fan running, and there might possibly be a little thermal lag if the lamp power and fan are shut down at the same time, but it is far from a critical matter. The larger reason for running fans after shutdown is to allow for a shorter cool down period because the arc cannot be struck on a hot lamp. The issue of thermal lag is not at all a certainty, and in the opinion of nearly all of the individuals that I spoke to, is not a great concern. The number of lamp-start cycles is a far greater variable.
A little research, some real info about the type of protection the unit offers, and some measurements of the claimed performance benefits would make this an interesting article. As it reads, it is a waste of time if one is interested in more than a discussion of how “high tech” the unit appears to be and how pretty it will look in a stack of equipment.
The article by Terry Paullin was equally unimpressive. The final comments regarding NASA are incorrect and confusing drivel.
Leonard Caillouet, Electronics World, Gainesville, Florida
Contributing Editor Doug Blackburn Comments:
One can locate surge suppression specifications at the manufacturer’s Web site. To date, the editor has not chosen to include this duplicate information on the manufacturer’s surge specifications in power conditioner reviews. However, even if they were included, the specifications would probably not tell you what you wish to know. Wide variations in how manufacturers establish their surge suppression specification make it difficult to relate one brand to another brand. Some power-conditioning products offer warranties covering the cost of replacing connected equipment that is damaged by the power-conditioning product failing to do its job. That may be more valuable than the published joule rating or other surge ratings, if any, for any given power-conditioning product.
I have 34 years of technical and engineering experience supporting professional imaging equipment. Many products were equipped with high-output light sources, and none of those products would ever have been shipped without a cooling phase after lamp shutdown. Laboratory testing proved that cooling air protects the lamp envelope, the reflector optics around the lamp, the hot-running optical path components (infra-red filter and heat absorbing glass), and the cool-running optical path components (color filters, prisms, lenses, etc.). Orientation of the lamp (vertical, horizontal, upside down, etc.) and distance of each component from the lamp envelope determines exactly what happens when there is no airflow during the cool-down phase. I have not seen every front- or rear-projection display optical assembly/path and cannot say that there may be exceptions, but I have never seen an optical assembly/path in a video display product that I would approve for shipping without a cooling phase after the lamp was turned off...except those equipped with high-output LED light sources. Every person is certainly free to form his or her own opinion of the importance of lamp cooling after shutdown.
As for the lack of measurements backing up subjective observations, it’s probably worth addressing again since it has been a number of years since it was last addressed. Providing credible measurements to back up or refute subjective observations could easily exceed $500,000 for the test equipment and test environment alone. Technician time for setup, performing each battery of tests, and teardown would add more per-review costs. That sort of expense is beyond the capabilities of any commercial publication, unless the measurements are highly subsidized (government, industry grant/ fund, etc.). Paying a third party to perform the measurements in a sufficiently equipped facility is also well beyond any reasonable editorial budget for product reviews. An entire high-resolution 5.1 (or 7.1) system would have to be installed in a large high-quality anechoic chamber. The test system could easily exceed $30,000 in audio equipment, plus another $10,000 plus for video equipment. The size of such a test chamber could easily run construction costs to over $500,000 for a room sufficiently quiet (audio) and sufficiently shielded (RF). High-resolution test equipment like an audio frequency spectrum analyzer, RF spectrum analyzer, calibrated microphones, calibrated power supplies, etc. would add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of the facility and carry a substantial on-going re-calibration costs.
There is no practical or worthwhile way to make meaningful measurements within a typical home theatre environment. The measurements would have to be performed under controlled and repeatable conditions for them to have any value at all. Even after doing a full panel of measurements, it is likely none of the measurements would be particularly meaningful to real-world use of the product, since each specific location where the product is installed will have a different distribution of power line noise, RF noise from internal and external sources, etc. So the performance in any given installation will be unique to that location.
User observations and subjective observations are affordable, but are not worth any more than the experience and skill of the observer. I look forward to my subjective observations earning the trust of you and other Wide-screen Review readers over time as they have opportunities to experience some of the products I have reviewed for themselves. Being a newer WSR reader, you may not be aware that I have now reviewed almost 100 individual power conditioning and other power-related products, and I have been reviewing audio and video components for more than 15 years professionally. But like you, those stats would not be enough to convince me that an unknown-to-me reviewer knows his stuff. I hope I can build that trust over time.
You can E-mail Widescreen Review @ mailto:editorgary@widescreenreview.com