We understand that power management specifications can be confusing at times, and given the number of technologies employed across the industry, it can be difficult to understand which Panamax technology is right for your Home Theater or office. So we have compiled a list of our proprietary technologies and the power management solutions they provide.

 

POWER MANAGEMENT

Question: What is Power Management?

Answer: Probably the least understood audio/video component is power management. Most people think that means protection in case of a catastrophic surge, the kind caused by lightning, but it means a lot more. Power management is absolutely critical to the performance, longevity, and reliability of your home theater system.

To understand why this is, you have to understand a little bit about the electricity that comes into your home.

Power coming into homes today varies widely in quality. Power cleaning and premium filtration are needed to eliminate common symptoms of AC line noise, such as loss of detail, pops, hisses, hums, and visual artifacts, and allow equipment to perform at its full capacity for an optimal home theater experience.

The US has a 100+ year old power grid that has not been consistently upgraded. The grid worked fine for light bulbs and vacuum tubes, but our technology has moved far beyond that. Devices that rely on microchips, like the ones in a home theater, are vulnerable to damage from surges and spikes endemic to the antique infrastructure.

Every AC outlet in the world gets dozens to hundreds of hits each day, most of them generated in the home itself. For example, when the motor in your washer turns on or off, it sends a spike through the whole house. Those little spikes are known as power contamination, which in time will destroy the microchips in your home theater system. Even before that happens, the contamination will make your DVD player or your plasma display behave temperamentally, so that you don’t get the picture and sound the device is capable of providing.

Besides protection from contamination, a home theater system needs pure power. That’s power free of noise, in this case the noise created by computers and other electronics that use switching power supplies. This kind of noise affects almost every element in a high-end audio or visual environment, and it masks much of the detail needed for optimal sound and video definition and resolution.

Panamax has been an international leader of award-winning, innovative power management products for more than 30 years. Their power management products give audio/video systems the pure, noise-free power they need for superlative performance, providing longevity to the components connected while protecting them from damage caused by power surges and lightning.

 

AUTOMATIC VOLTAGE MONITORING (AVM)

As electricity demands change all throughout the day or night, voltage swells (Increases) or sags (Decreases) have adverse effects on appliance or component performance, as well as stress internal components of your devices. In addition, when power supplies or internal components sustained over/under-voltage, the lifespan of your electronics is significantly diminished.

By monitoring input voltage from the wall or circuit, Panamax Power Management Products, with AVM, protect equipment from damage or major component degradation by disconnecting the power and reconnecting it when safe power returns. The circuit will disconnect if the voltage sags below 92 volts (±) or swells above 138 volts (±), product dependant.

 

PROTECT-OR-DISCONNECT

Natural disasters and catastrophic events are both very serious for any household or business. Protecting devices during such electrical nightmares is mandatory with surge protectors.

Using thermal fuses and high capacity MOVs all Panamax Power Management protection products have this catastrophic protection circuit as a fundamental layer of defense. Protect-or-Disconnect is a Panamax trademarked technology which places the Panamax device last in the line of defense, doing simply what the name suggests. Using this technology, your device(s) are protected from the most disastrous of electrical events.

 

PREMIUM NOISE FILTRATION

Digital components are becoming more and more sophisticated. As components evolve, their power supplies become more efficient (switching vs. linear) and they engage more actions (processes) when running. These additions contribute to severe electrical feedback and noise. In addition, common household appliances such as refrigerators or AC compressors use large motors, which back feeds electrical noise down the AC line to your valuable equipment.

Panamax Power Management devices filter out such unwanted noise using proprietary filtration circuits such as our Balanced Double “L” circuit. Certain Panamax products use a combination of specific filtration circuits and balanced power combining isolation transformers with proprietary technology, offering Power Management devices for every need.

 

LINEAR NOISE FILTRATION

Most “line conditioners” or filtration devices use generic circuits (capacitors and inductors) to filter AC line noise. Although these basic internal components do their job dutifully, improperly tuned filter sets (or generic circuits) leave behind unwanted harmonic noise which is detrimental to system performance and is unacceptable in a Power Management product. Most high performance Home Theater devices (Blu-ray Disc Players, Pre/Pros, Digital projectors) benefit greatly from high quality noise filtration. The more the resolution (1080p and 4K) the greater the results with quality noise filtration.

LiFT (Linear Filtration Technology) uses finely tuned application specific internal components to filter noise evenly across the entire frequency band. This insures best in class noise filtration without expensive transformers or added weight. This feature is found in select Panamax Power Management products. Panamax’s PM Components offer LiFT technology.

 

VOLTAGE REGULATION

As electricity demands change in your Audio/Video system and throughout your house, voltage delivery can be constantly varying. When current demand changes (ex. dynamic passage in movie sound track or large flat panel display with varying content), current draw changes dramatically. When your AV system or household draws more amperage, the voltage can drop, compromising AV performance. Although agency certified appliances and equipment operate normally under minor voltage variations (5% over/under), optimum equipment performance can only be obtained with stable power.

Panamax offers voltage regulation (or stabilization) in a few products. Although there are many different ways of stabilizing voltage, our approach isn’t through a battery or servo-controlled magnetically manipulated transformer. Using a solid state design, Panamax offers both a highly precise regulation topology with and a value oriented regulation option for an assortment of applications, both with silent operation with zero moving parts.

 

ISOLATED OUTLET BANKS

Noise throughout a household or Audio/Video system is a legitimate performance robbing issue. Adding an AC line conditioner reduces or practically eliminates AC line noise, however connected AV products are sources of noise themselves. Whether it’s a DVD player, audio receiver, HTPC (or media center), these are sources of noise themselves.

With outlets in pairs, isolated outlet banks offer additional filtration by outfitting particular banks with independent filtration circuits. Noise generated by associated devices in an AV system is isolated from other devices connected to adjacent banks, thereby further reducing the AC line noise effecting precious components.

 

USB CHARGING

Mobile phones, tablets and other small gadgets now take their power charge through USB.

Panamax PM components, the MR4300 and MR5100 feature a USB charging port on the front panel, plus a front panel gaming outlet.