Furman IT-20 II Balanced Power Conditioner Black

The Furman IT-20 II Balanced Power Conditioner is designed for the most critical, ultra-low noise installations. The IT-20 II can supply 20 amps of balanced AC power for recording studios, broadcast stations, or video production facilities. To understand the incredible need for clean noise-free AC power, it's important to note that today's sophisticated studio equipment features tremendous dynamic range. Most of the signal content that defines high resolution such as harmonics, instrument timbre, high-frequency extension, spatial cues, and fast transient attacks in audio are inherently low in signal level. Further, when AC noise is induced into audio processors, preamplifiers, microphones, powered monitors, computers, and mixing consoles these all important low level signals are distorted or masked. Once signals are masked there is no way to retrieve the lost content. Advanced AC filtering is critical when audio or video resolution is at stake. With Furman's IT-20 II, you will hear audio content and see video images as they were meant to be-pristine. Add to this Furman's SMP non-sacrificial surge suppression, E.V.S. protection, Linear Filtering Technology (LiFT), and laboratory grade digital voltmeter, and you will be assured that AC noise and surges are a thing of the past.Balanced AC Power In much the same way that balanced audio lines can reduce the pickup of hum and other types of electromagnetic interference (EMI), the use of balanced AC power lines in sensitive audio, video, or computer installations can make an enormous difference in system noise and signal integrity. But power distribution in North America, unfortunately, is not balanced. The distribution standards currently in use were derived from practices established over a century ago, when electric power use was limited to lighting and motors-long before any AC noise sensitive applications existed. The emphasis then was on convenience (from the power utilities-standpoint) and safety, but not noise cancellation. The result was a three-wire distribution scheme in which 120V branch circuits have a hot wire and a neutral wire, with the neutral tied to a third wire connected for safety to an earth ground. The third wire does not carry any current unless there is a fault. This unbalanced scheme can create hum in audio circuits for two main reasons. First, the current flowing in the hot wire induces hum in any other nearby wires, which may carry vulnerable low-level audio or video signals. Second, because the impedance of chassis and cable shielding to ground is always greater than zero ohms, ground current flowing from power supply capacitors and from EMI pickup causes a voltage drop at 60Hz and its harmonics. This low level noise becomes part of the audio signals.With a center-tapped isolation transformer, the AC power feeding a studio can be balanced at its source. The current-carrying wires then are no longer "hot" (120V) and "neutral" (0V), but two