Customer Reviews

APC 1500 VA H Type Power Conditioner H15BLK, Black

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Purchased this for my home theater and the H15 has worked flawlessly since day one. I'm amazed that my home power is actually fairly stable, the filter mainly kicks in when I start to power everything up. The unit is extremely easy to setup and looks good too. It's nice to see how much power is being used and when there are any drops or spikes. There is a slight clicking sound, but it's hardly noticable unless you're right next to the unit. The display is dimmable which is good for dark rooms/setups.
I purchased the H15 wanting to make sure I had enough headroom for all of my home theater. Based on my initial calculations of power usage, I would have come close to actually maxing out the unit, but in daily use, I use no more than 40% of the capacity of H15. This includes a 32" TV, HD projector, retractable screen, receiver, DVD player, DVR and WII unit, network switch and remote control center.
If you're building your home theater and considering a power conditioner, you absolutely cannot go wrong with the H10 or H15. I've worked with APC products for years both on the home and commerical (data center) side and their products are very reliable and cost effective, especially considering the value of what you are protecting.

...Love it. Months and many thunderstorms later, I still love it. APC has great customer support too - great for answering user and technical questions. I have my stereo, wifi, high quality blu-ray player, cable tv receiver/dvr box, and expensive Pioneer Kuro Elite flat panel on this power conditioner - because, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." I had gotten a good flat panel tv and other equipment and wanted to protect the electronics from both surges and sags... Since it's not a PC but only my set of AV entertainment equipment, I didn't need a power conditioner with a battery backup; only needed a good quality power conditioner.
...I chose it because 1) output is a pure sine wave, protects realtime against both sags and surges (both can cause harm to electronics) 2) quality of engineering/product 3) didn't need battery backup for this need 4)has lots of places to plug in on the back 5) sits on my entertainment shelf unit with my stereo and other stuff and looks beautiful (nice tiny blue status lights that go orange in the event of a fault, like during a thunderstorm) 6) size of a vcr player or receiver, not big heavy thing.
...I've watched this operate during bad thunderstorms and it does react to and report both sags and surges. There's a voltage reading which is nice too. It automatically returned to normal when the house power returned to normal. Before, I unplugged my expensive equipment when leaving because I don't have whole-house protection yet.
...Sags and surges (small or large) are among the main causes for electronic equipment problems - solid state and other components over time are affected by these. Investing the money in this increases likelihood of long happy lifetime later. Don't get the cheap stuff - not worth it. Stick to APC or Tripp-Lite.
...I found that APC had a better website than Tripp-Lite, and their customer support was great for answering questions or deciding which product. This is not just typical sales support that just reads the box same as you can - their phone staff I talked with twice during product selection and later during setup (which was easy) included some technical understanding. How refreshing, and smart competitive investment on APC's part.
....My next step is $80-100 whole-house surge protector that goes on the fuse box - one hour or less for electrician to install - if you have a nearby lightening hit or other cause of a big surge on your lines (not common unless you live in Florida, but it can and does happen), this will stop the surge from proceeding thru your house lines to burn out your PC and entertainment stuff. Have the electrician put it on the lines that feed those devices. If you live where there's a LOT of lightening strikes, then get a more expensive, resettable unit.
...But even if I already had a whole-house surge protector, I'd still have this APC shelf unit for my entertainment equipment... conditions the power that is delivered to the equipment so it is clean - steady and never drops or rises suddenly. Picked this one after reading many happy reviews by both consumers and also highly technical people versed in electronics who bench tested its technical functionality (on techhead and audio/video-phile test & review websites).
... APC had a range of product choices in power protection and/or power backup.

Great product. Have had it for over a year. It's amazing to see how many times it has to balance the power coming from the wall outlet...especially during the summer months in the south when all the power is going to Air Conditioners so the APC has to step things up. This is definitly a must buy for anyone with a good home theater setup.

this unit boasts of surge protected coax input and splitter, where you connect your cable (or sat cable) into the unit, then the signal is split in two, one output going to your TV or receiver, the purpose being protection against lightning strikes and surges that travel thru coax lines. BUT I've lost SEVERAL channels, mainly premium and HD, with that hookup. this has been mentioned in older forums. it does not seem , as of today, that APC has any solution. or explanation.

Already a long-time customer of various PowerMax power protection and conditioning products, I found myself in the market for something beefy for a renovated home theater room. The APC H15 fits the bill, perfectly. At 1440VA (12 Amps), it has plenty of headroom to supply clean power to my AV rack with room to spare. Some of the features that drew me to this unit were:

1) Price - through Amazon, this was a bargain.

2) Isolation - Having 12 outlets across discrete banks of isolated outputs ensures the more noise-sensitive devices can be isolated from others. Separate supply banks for digital, analog, and high current devices are a necessity for the variety of devices in today's home theater.

3) Regulation - The buck/boost and monitoring capability of this unit is unique at this price point. Probably not as important as the noise filtering and surge protection features, but nice nonetheless. Most power supply designs in AV consumer electronics are relatively forgiving of input voltage fluctuation, but providing a regulated input keeps things running smoothly.

4) Protection - Having experienced previous surge damage, protection is something I take very seriously. With whole house surge suppression combined with point of use protection, I am a big fan of surge suppression and of the school that you can't have too much. This unit has a max rating of 5200 joules with a let through voltage of <40V. The joule rating is the amount of energy absorbed, and the let through value is very important. This describes what voltage gets through to your equipment while the H15 is suppressing a 6000V surge! UL indicates the minimum value for compliance is 330V, so the H15 exceeds this handily.

A few nits:

The display and interface is a little 1990's combined with 2008 blue LED craze. My coffee maker has a better resolution display. The display at this price point could be larger and more informative. One must use the buttons to navigate to each display value. I would have rather seen a better display that shows all the status info at a glance. I probably wouldn't mind as much, but this sits at the bottom of my rack, and I have to stoop to press the button and read the blocky, low-res LCD, and I'm not getting any younger.

Also, most AV equipment these days have network connections, so surge protection for CAT6 would round out the protection offered on the back of the H15.


All-in-all, this is a great power conditioner and I recommend it for home theater installations.

I am still excited about my APC H15! However, after unpacking the outer box to get to the inner APC box the first thing that came to mind is 'wow! It was moving around in there'. So next I unpack it from inside the APC box and lift it out... rattle rattle click tink rattle. Ah oh... somethings loose. So I hold it up and tilt it from side to side. Not just one thing but a few. Grrrrrr! I quickly figured out that 3 screws hold on the top that slides out toward the back and off. I tilt it back and forth several times. I see a smaller silver screw and a larger black screw scooting back and forth. OK... I tilted all the way to the right and got them out. Let's give it a few more tilts just to make sure... tilt tilt tilt... clink! :| Another smaller silver screw. A few more tilts (this is like a friggen pinball machine) and no more loose objects.
OK... let's figure out where they go. The right side (looking from the back) has what it appears the main microprocessor card. No missing screws there. There's a big coil in the middle. Nope... that's in there snug. Ah HA! The board on the left that has the wires going to the outlets in the back is 'wobbly'. I was able to find where the screws went and secured them. Well since we have this bad boy open, let's go through all the spade connections, connections, wires and plugs... make sure they are good and tight and secure. Not bad. I put it all back together and power tested. No problem with initial power cycle. OK... let's plug stuff in and setup. The rest of my test went without a hitch and setup was easy. Now we wait and see how well it lasts in the LONG term.

IMPORTANT! FREE advice to APC! Please apply a liberal amount of Loctite on the screw threads and have someone tighten the threads who has more arm strength. Absolutely NO REASON that I have to finish the manufacturing process for you. :|

This product works pretty good. The line boost (volt reg) kicks on quietly and keeps voltage at a steady maintained level. As far as better sound or pic quality, I really dont hear or see anything different on my system consisting of: Pansonic 65' Plasma, Yamaha receiver 567, jbl towers, dual 12' boston acoustics subs, panasonic bluray, xbox, etc....) I would say and warn anyone of this and it is consistant on most power conditioners cleaners etc.. The filtration / clean power is too much filter for sattelite Tv (DISH DIRECT etc..) If you run your coax/cable through it, you will have issues stating the sattelite is not producing a signal that you can watch TV through. As a result you will get the generic screen that says try re-pluging in your Sattelite, or there is an obstruction causing interference in gaining a signal etc...

This is a great power conditoner and power builder 1500 watts of good clean power my plasma an Edge amp and Focal speakers all thank you very much APC if your looking at Panamax or Furman or PS Audio save your money and buy this because I tried out all the others and this works awesome no gimicks no smoke and mirrors just a good product that does what it says with out breaking the bank thanks APC.

The power conditioner has many features that users would like to have. This is my second APC power conditioner that I have purchased for another TV and I like it. I bought my first one for about two years ago and it has been working great in my old apartment that has power issues. It gives me notification when the power is fluctuating, if the line is OK, voltage regulation is working and shows the voltage, if noise filtering is working and has a nice LCD Display that is easy to use and a back light. It also features a trip button and power button that allows you to shut everything off when you go away for awhile.

The one issues that I have with the power conditioner is that it is a bit behind the times. The coax filter handles signals between 500Mhz to 1 Ghz. For my cable and internet the signal it is low and the signal does not go through. I haven't tried it on a regular antenna connection. It also has a filter for phone cable using one line that I will most likely never use.

It is a great power conditioner and I have many APC products. I like having the assurance that my home theater devices are protected and I do not have interference from power issues.

This product is a step up above the h10blk which does not have the LCD screen and has less power connections.

I bought this product shortly after acquiring an HDTV. I reasoned that it costs only a fraction as much as the TV and other connected components that it protects. And if beyond being good insurance it yielded subtle performance improvements, so much the better. I can't confirm or deny that the unit causes the home theater equipment to perform better, but it has caught many spikes during thunderstorms and other power events. I've had my first unit for about 4 years. I received it DOA, but the manufacturer replaced it promptly without argument. Since then it's worked perfectly. I added a second unit a few months ago when I added a second TV setup to our home.

Twice I've had Dish receivers spontaneously combust in my living room -- same model receiver each time. Both times Dish insisted that they've never heard of such a thing and implied that I or my home's power been at fault. Both times I explained that I was absolutely certain the problem originated with the receiver, due to my power conditioning equipment. The nitwits at Dish had no idea what I was talking about, but got the message that I wasn't going to be pushed around. The issue ended each time without a financial dispute with Dish. Maybe I wouldn't have had one anyway, but I was very grateful each time for the conditioner. Without it, I couldn't have been sure the problem wasn't mine.

The unit isn't a UPS, but the main capacitor does store a few seconds worth of power. Sometimes this is enough to avoid disrupting our viewing during a brief hiccup, all with power I'm sure is clean.

I'm very happy to own two of these, and will probably buy more if I add further equipment to my home that warrants it.