Belkin PF40

Acknowledgement to Kiwimeat for shamelessly stealing the format of his PF30 review - Thank You..
Kiwimeat's PF30 Review

What's in the box?
User Manual
PureAV™ Power Console PF40
Rack Brackets
Remote AC Control Cable
Remote DC Control Cable
1.8m RJ45 Ethernet Cable
1.8m RJ11 Phone Cable
1.8m F-Type Coaxial
1.8m Coaxial Aerial Cable
1x Sheet of PureAV Cable Labels
1x 2m Power Cable (Box says 3m?)

Technical Specifications
Electrical Rating 240V~8A/1920W
Product Weight 6.8 kg
Dimensions 435 x 329 x 153 mm (WxDxH)
Number of Sockets 13
Cable Length 2m (Box says 3m)
Joule Rating 7700J
Max Spike Current 264,000A
Response Time <1 nanosecond
Coaxial Protection 3-in, 3-out
Phone Protection 1-in, 2-out
Ethernet Protection 1-in, 1-out
Overload Protection Yes

First Impressions
- Unit looks very flash with a brushed Aluminum front and the rest of the casing in grey. PureAV is stamp in big letters into the top of the case.
- As noted by Kiwimeat with the PF30 the manual is indeed very light on technical information.
- The unit was a lot lighter than I expected. All the sites I had seen it on had it listed as 11Kg in weight, in reality it is only 6.8Kg.
- Power lead is a nice heavy duty cable, but 1m shorter than the box claims it should be. This isn't a problem as a 2m cable is ideal for me.
- Unit is quite large. About the size of an average desktop PC.

Pro's
- Looks good
- Mains Lead is nice and thick and insulated
- Can be rack mounted
- Included Cables are of good quality
- Cool to the touch

Con's
- As noted by Kiwimeat with the PF30 the manual is very brief and vague - no real detail on what the Digital, Video and Audio filters actually do

Outputs
-The back of the unit is broken up into 4 different powered sections.

Digital Filter (Always On) - x5 Outlets (1 on front of unit) - dual stage digital filter (DVD, CD, DAT Player, PVR/DVR, Digital STB)
Video Filter (Always On) - x2 Outlets - single stage analogue filter. (TV, VCR)
Audio Filter (Switched) - x4 Outlets - single stage analogue filter. (Tape Player, Receiver (Preamp), Turntable)
HiCurrent Filter (Switched 8sec delay) - x2 Outlets - optimised to filter out AC line noise. (Amplifiers, Powered Subwoofers)

Front LCD
- The front panel tells you the input voltage, current output in Amps from the units outlet banks, earthed information, correct wiring information (to ensure your wall AC is correctly wired), additional information about the switched outlet banks is all displayed.

Operation
- The switched outlets on the back will only power up when you press the button on the front of the unit. The Audio switched bank fires straight up with the HiCurrent bank turning on 8sec later.
- The always on outlets are funnily enough always on.
- The Amp draw takes a little while for the system to display, but once its calculated it updates instantly as you put load on the unit.
- The front panel is quite bright and dimmer control allows you to almost completely darken the display. The unit is always on and you can only power it off at the wall socket.

I have had the unit running with my Sony HS60 and Laptop hooked up projecting on the bedroom wall, everything ran fine with a total draw of 0.7 amps. Our house is still about a month away so I will update this review once I've got all the gear plugged in.

Pics of unit.

Nice review... opening it up for us earns you bonus points!

From a quick look inside, the contents conform pretty much to what I predicted (what you'd expect, including at least two dozen MOVs and a handfull of HF chokes).

Only 'Electrical Rating 240V~8A/1920W'?

Wheres the rest of the 2400W capable from your wall outlet gone? Whats going on?

I'm running 3 big amps (1.5KW, 1.5KW, 1.8KW), with 1\5th of the power culled this is what is limiting my purchase of such a unit.

Maybe the 'sparkys' of the forum like 'santa' could chime in on this one.

IMHO you'd be far better off purchasing a UPS rather than just a very expensive surge protector, especially if your living in an area prone to under/over voltages.

Only if the UPS generates it's own sine-wave (online-ups), the offline UPS's don't tend to clear up glitches in the power apart from when they are on battery due to a power "event".

My APC SmartUPS 1250 is an offline UPS and I still get the occasional audio-glitch on my Toppy when certain light switches are used.

Well the PF40 is certainly better priced than this beast...

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_13_2...006-part-1.html

altho it doesn't have the nice big transformers that this one has

Actually you can't really use a UPS since the current draw of the Amp is too high. You will get clipping of the sound because during an audio event with high output the UPS won't be able to keep up with the brief spike. Also as dJOS mentioned it needs to be the expensive online UPS not a switched one.

Can you tell me what your experience is with the switched settings and wether you are using the 12v trigger input to control any of your gear?

I was thinking this would be handy for running some items such as a fan controller, and some gear that has no IR on/off. I read the manual and it states that any of the switched power points will be controlled by the 12v trigger. I take it that I could use my AVR as the triggering device if it is connected to the PF40 as "always on". Is this correct?

I don't have anywhere to view/play with one of these so I want to make sure of what it can do .

Currently using one of the 8-way isolators Belkin sell. I'm not certain the filtering stages etc on this will be any better but the functionality it offers would be useful. If anyone can expand on the differences that would be handy!

Can you tell me the price?
(pm if its not convenient to reveal openly, thanks)

I bought the PF40 for $800Aus

I bought the PF40 for $800Aus