Power Conditioners...

I'm going to buy a power conditioner for my modest little effects rack... But i cant decide between Furman and the less expensive Samson. 

Any suggestions?

You know they are nothing but UPS's right?  (UPS= Uninterruptable Power Supply) 

Unless you want it specifically in a rack mount configuration (more expensive) you can but the UPS from Walmart of Lowes or any other store that sells them.

I have one on every bit of computer & IT gear in this house. The UPS generally will have a larger battery and thus more standby time than the power conditioners. They protect against surges as well as power blinks, brown outs and failures. 

Since it is down on the floor behind the computer it's out of sight and out of mind until the power blinks. 

Just my 2 centavos worth. 

Thanks everyone - my rack is only 6 units and is portable, so i'd like to have the conditioner rack mounted. I was looking at the Samson powerbrite and Powerstrip and comparable Furman models. 

Dirty power is defined as the spikes and sags that come down the electrical lines every minute of every day. They are caused by substation switching, motors turning on and off, ballasts in lights, and so many more things.  

The days of clean sine wave AC are gone.  A computer's switching  power supply is also a contributor to the harmonic distortion that gets introduced to the line. 

The conditioners try to remove the over voltages... the spikes, to "clean up" the power coming in, which obviously does serious damage to sensitive electronics.  However, a conditioner without some sort of battery backup power supply will do absolutely nothing to prevent damage from under voltage, and drop outs (to zero). Trust me when I say that an under voltage situation can be just as harmful to some electronics as a spike. 

Most of the UPS units on the market will do BOTH jobs. Preventing the everyday spikes and even lightning surges from getting through...(power conditioning) and at the same time, when the power blinks out or drops approximately 20% from normal, the system automatically switches to battery power.  Brown outs... think California in the summer. 

If you are convinced that you want a rack mounted Conditioner for whatever reason, I would highly recommend that you buy a UPS and plug the conditioner into one if it's back up outlets to keep you covered on the under voltage thing. There is NO HARM created by running 2 or more surge protection devices in series like I just mentioned. 



edit to add: 2 things.
One... In my line of work, a certain alarm controller I use has a power supply requirement of 15 volts at the control terminals for it to work properly. As the power supply ages, it's ability to put out a continuous  15v drops slowly. When it gets to 13.5v or lower at the control terminals, the control starts acting erratically. Under voltage of 10% in this case causes major problems. 

second thing..... Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was the first western band permitted into Russia. They carried their US gear, which consisted of Peavey at the time. Russia is not a country known for it's pristine, at rated voltage electricity. they encountered a number of venues where the voltage was up to 25% under the amp input ratings..... 90vac when it should have been 120vac. The gear made it through the gigs OK..... Peavey used that as a testimony to how tough their gear was. The point being that the under voltage would have killed "lesser" amps.... 

Why not buy some small wind power turbines (4 foot or so blades)? About 5 of those and the rest of the batteries and equipment needed about probably around $10000 and then in certain States you can sell what you don't use back to the power company (that would be with 5 of those around 2000 watts at 400watts output each).

One big one (10 foot blades) use to put out 3000 watts but use to cost around $15000 to $18000 for one.

For what it's worth, I have the Samson.. nice as a master On/Off for the studio, but useless otherwise. The mid-priced Furman does filter static, spikes etc. It even cleans up interference from electric fences etc - I know because I just bought one and it solved the single-coil noise issues I had.

Nothing happens to my computer (it does not crash). When power returns I just start it up again (like everything else that needs to be reset or turned on - or even left on).

This unit is the only one that would probably be enough and it is or can be way more than a power conditioner.
http://www.staples.com/Cy...let-UPS/product_749900

It's the wattage, and my computer (which is old) takes 650 watts by itself. Stereo if I have it on, takes 300 watts. The rest is not as much but then I have everything plugged into my power conditioner that I use and it costs less.
I was joking in a sense about the power wind turbines, unless you have a lot of money.

Even a simple surge protector can handle 1875 watts and 15 amps (which don't seem to be much because what I use never gets over 2 amps totally).

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PRO3500/
That is what I have, and that is all I will use. I rather have a newer computer than worry about something that has not affected me that much.
If you save your work often than I have never lost that much and remember what I was doing and it usually goes faster the second time around.

What you buy is up to you though!