I have an older Reference 15. I imagine it has the same part?
A Warning for Owners of Furman IT Refernence 20i
A Warning to anyone who owns a Furman IT Reference 20i for power filtering-
Do Not Leave the unit unattended while powered on. A few weeks ago, I smelled the very acrid smell of melting plastic and circuit board coming from my stereo. Long story short, my Furman IT Reference was the source and one of the circuit boards that was designed to prevent ‘current inrush’ self destructed.
Thankfully, I was close by and was able to quickly unplug the unit or there was a very serious chance of fire! Since then I have tried, without any success, to have the unit repaired, but have gotten nowhere with Furman (now part of Nortek). I have tried sending in multiple requests for service. I’ve tried calling, only to end up in ‘press 1 for, press 2, purgatory..‘. When I have managed to get someone on the line, they referred me to their ‘dealer network’ for repairs. I contacted one of the dealers and they told me that only Furman is allowed to perform their own repairs. Call back Nortek and they won’t sell parts and they only use their dealers for repairs. Lather, Rinse, repeat. For $5k I’d expected better. The only good news is that I’m a very experienced service person for research instrumentation and I was able to identify the electrical component that failed (Ametek Thermistor SL22). Furman undersized the thermistor in their inrush circuit and thereby started the board to self destruct. The part is very cheap and I’m hoping I can still salvage the circuit board. But BEWARE! Had I not been nearby, it could have been much much worse!!!
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emailistsThat is a good question. The reason that I would tend to doubt it is because it seems that many manufacturers change up parts from model to model and even from unit to unit., let alone year to year. That is a blanket statement, I will admit. Within my limited scope of electronic knowledge, I still take the top off units just to see wth is going on. Many times it is a headshaker, but like in the case of my BPT unit, there is nothing admiration to be had for the forethought and quality displayed. |
Thanks for the response. I do have to say I really like Garth Powell’s designs. In my main system I use the Niagara 7000, and like that it stores energy for transients. I also have an modest home theater system plugged into it and it really made it sound quite sweet. when putting together a small system away from home I tried the Audioquest power center 3, since I read it was very similar to Niagara 1000/1200. I ended up preferring the sound of the used 15 year old Furman reference 15, which I read is the same as the 15i, which just has upgraded cosmetics.
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I recommend not leaving your stereo equipment plugged in and turned on and unattended for any length of time. I take it even further and unplug my stereo when I’m not home. Not for reasons of safety, but it’s more that I’ve known owners who lost their entire system due to a nearby lightening strike during a thunderstorm. As for Furman, I had hoped that they’d stand behind their product. |
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