Ultralink High Def Power Conditioner with Display, BNIB HDC150

Ultralink HDC150 High Definition Power Conditioner with Display — 8 Filtered Outlets, Coax and Network Protection, New in Box

A power conditioner built to sit at the base of a system and protect everything plugged into it, with eight surge-protected and filtered AC outlets, isolated banks for digital, video, audio and high-current components, and surge protection on the coax and network lines that most conditioners leave unguarded.

Power conditioning earns its place two ways. The first is protection: a 3,500 joule rating, a 15 amp resettable breaker, and automatic surge and power-safety shutdown standing between the wall and equipment worth many times the cost of the conditioner. The second is noise. EMI and RFI riding on the AC line lift the noise floor of everything downstream of it, and this unit filters from 150 kHz to 100 MHz with attenuation up to 58 dB — what UltraLink grades as Level 2 filtration, the tier above a basic filtered bar.

Eight outlets is the number that matters, because a system is never just the amplifier. A home theatre runs a television, a Blu-ray player and a streaming box alongside the receiver. A two-channel system runs a turntable, a CD player and a cassette deck alongside the amp. Every one of those is plugged into the same wall, sees the same surge, and in most rooms sits behind nothing more than a hardware-store power bar. One conditioner covers the whole stack.

The outlet layout is the practical part, and it is more considered than the count suggests. The eight outlets are arranged as four isolated, individually filtered pairs — digital, video, analogue and high-current — so a streaming box cannot push switching noise into the analogue stage beside it, and an amplifier drawing hard on transients is not sharing a filter with anything else. Four outlets stay always on for components that prefer continuous power, and four are switched so the rest of the system comes up and down together. That isolation is the difference between a conditioner and a power bar.

Coax and network protection is the part most people overlook. A surge travels along an antenna, cable or network feed just as readily as it does along the mains, and a conditioner that guards only the AC line leaves that door open. Two pairs of gold-plated coaxial connections are provided — one for cable, one for satellite — each shielded, in and out, rated for 1080i/p with attenuation below 0.1 dB from 950 MHz to 2.2 GHz, so protection costs nothing in picture quality. A pair of RJ45 network connections carries fuseless, auto-resetting protection, and a rear ground post is provided.

Patented ASP microprocessor voltage monitoring watches the incoming line, and the front-panel display reports incoming line voltage directly — a running readout of what the wall is actually delivering, rather than a lamp that tells you only that something is plugged in. Beside it sit Power On, Protection On, Alarm and Ground OK indicators, so a failed ground or a spent protection circuit announces itself instead of going unnoticed. SmartSurge technology and the Advanced Level 2 filtration system sit behind it. The unit ships with an eight-foot 14 AWG three-conductor power cord.

UltraLink publishes a spectrum analyser comparison of the same AC supply before and after filtration, and it is worth looking at rather than taking on faith: the unfiltered trace is dense with noise spikes across the band, and the filtered trace is close to flat. That much is a measurement. The benefits the manufacturer attributes to it — improved picture detail and colour saturation, tighter bass and more detail in the high frequencies — are their characterisation of what removing that noise does downstream, and how audible or visible it proves in a given room depends heavily on how clean the incoming supply was to begin with. Homes on older wiring, or sharing a circuit with fridges, dimmers and furnace motors, have the most to gain.

The underlying case for protection is less debatable. Power quality problems range from brief malfunctions to immediate equipment failure, and the smaller fluctuations that cause no obvious symptom are the ones that degrade electronics quietly over years. Against the cost of replacing a failed component, the arithmetic is not close.

This example is brand new and unopened, in its original packaging, and carries its full manufacturer warranty.

Features

• 8 surge-protected, filtered AC outlets — 4 always-on, 4 switched
• Four isolated, individually filtered outlet pairs — digital, video, analogue and high-current
• Patented ASP microprocessor voltage monitoring
• 2 pair high-definition surge-protected coaxial connections — cable and satellite, gold-plated and shielded
• High-speed surge-protected RJ45 LAN network protection
• 15 amp reset circuit breaker
• Front-panel line voltage display with Power On, Protection On, Alarm and Ground OK indicators
• Rear ground post
• SmartSurge technology
• Advanced Level 2 filtration system
• HD+ enhanced HD video and audio
• 8 ft. 14 AWG three-conductor power cord

Specifications

• Joule rating: 3,500 J
• Outlets: 8 total — 4 always-on, 4 switched
• Total current capacity: 15 A
• Clamping voltage: 400 V, 1,000 V, 1,000 V
• Protection modes: line to neutral, line to ground, neutral to ground
• Surge circuit shutdown: yes
• Power safety shutdown: yes
• Line voltage: 125 VAC / 60 Hz
• EMI/RFI noise filtration: 150 kHz to 100 MHz, attenuation up to 58 dB, Level 2 filtration
• Coax protection: 2 pair (cable and satellite), gold-plated, 1 in / 1 out each, shielded, HD 1080i/p ready, attenuation under 0.1 dB from 950 MHz to 2.2 GHz, clamping level 75 V, bidirectional
• Network protection: RJ45, 1 in / 1 out, fuseless and auto-resetting, clamping level 275 V, capacitance approximately 30 pF, 10/100 Mbps compatible
• Power cord: 8 ft. (14 AWG / 3C)
• Approval status: c(UL)
• RoHS compliant: yes

Dimensions: (Width x Height x Depth) 17 x 2 x 11 inches (432 x 54 x 216 mm)
Weight: 7.8 lbs (3.55 kg)
Retail carton: 21 x 15 x 6 inches

Radique’s Take: There is a wide range of power conditioners on the market. We stock the Ultralink HDC150 because of its combination of quality, performance and price, and we can special order any of Ultralink’s other power management products at competitive prices.

New and unopened, this is a straightforward way to protect and quiet an entire system — amplifier, sources and all — for a fraction of what any one of those components cost. Original retail was $299 CAD plus HST. Available for pickup by appointment in Kanata, or shipped across Canada.

Backed by Radique Audio’s Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty and our Perpetual Trade-Back Program, you can purchase with confidence.