Monster Powercenter
Monster Cable has a product called PowerCenter. What is it for?
I'm planning to buy a new custom surround Sound System for my house.
Monster Cable has a product at best buy called a PowerCenter and it claims to filter out "dirty power" and it will guarantee to protect my system.
Right now, I have a 1300 watt stereo system and it is fine. I plug it into a power strip that has surge protection.
Do I need this thing called the PowerCenter from Monster Cable?
If you recommend it, what does it really do??
Power conditioners help filter dirty power on the line to deliver a clean sine wave to your components. This has almost no effect on high end audio equipment for sound quality because the power supplies they have already do that. Cheaper equipment may benefit however.
If the power center has battery backup as well then it will correct large sags in voltage as well as brown outs and short blackouts. Often times when the power comes back on after a brown/black out there is a huge spike that accompanies it. A voltage regulator will protect against that.
Another benefit is its surge suppression capabilities. The components inside the PowerCenter will react faster than the cheap power strips on the market that only have MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor) protection.
Most of all though it just looks impressive and provides a central place to plug everything into. I have a similar item from a different manufacturer (Belkin) and I like it. It may also provide a trigger out connection so that when you power off your receiver some of the outlets will power off. Very handy if you have amps or you want to leave your sub on instead of having in auto mode (with auto mode there is sometimes a momentary lag before it kicks in and it may shut off if no LFE are sent for a while during a movie).
They also sometimes provide a front outlet so if you bring down a game system or camcorder you can plug it into the front rather than pulling stuff out from the wall.
One thing to consider though is that retailers make a killing off Monster stuff. There is a lot of markup on it. You should shop around for better prices and different manufacturers. Some other manufacturers are Panamax, Furman, Belkin and APC.
EDIT: As per Big Q's answer, only some (non battery ones) can increase the line voltage and only for very short periods of time (milliseconds), most do not.
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