Well I listed a few 'ifs' there didn't I?
It's pretty much a given that most of us need some sort of central place to hook our equipment into. Further, just about anything that you use is going to have some sort of surge protection and EMI/RFI filtering incorporated into the contstruction. For a few more cents, okay maybe a couple of bucks, and a little bit of design work to make it look nicer, a manufacturer can charge a bit more for the added value as opposed to a run of the mill power strip. That's fine.
The incorporation of outlets that are EMI/RFI isolated from each other covers situations such as in my first reply above. The question to my mind, is what sort of equipment must one have in order for this particular device or engineering methodology to be of possible benefit?
It's strictly my opinion that if one is using devices such as digital amps or products that use some kind of switching power supplies then
perhaps high frequency crap is getting into the lines. Maybe in this case simply snapping a ferrite bead around the power cord is a cheap fix. Another possible device might be a DVD type player that incorporates upsampling.
Again, it's only my opinion, but products that also have the European
CE stamp on the back would be less likely to cause problems as it's my understanding that the European EMI/RFI protocols are more stringent than the US ones.
All this is predicated on your display device having some sort of propensity to AC born interference.
Now my only experience with this type of product was a
similar Belkin that I'd picked up from OfficeMax. Now my method of testing is a bit peculiar as I've got cords that split into two and also a home-made make-before-break switch. The switch allows me to seamlessly make a new connection without ever disturbing the power. Personally I couldn't see any difference between that unit and another one that I use.
So does the technology have any merit? Probably for most of us the answer is no. However, it's not bad thinking and so long as the price isn't too great and seeing as how you need to get some sort of device to hook all your stuff into, I think the idea bears some consideration. Further, the surge protection isn't a terrible idea.
Now FWIW, the Belkin A/V Isolator can be bought refurbised from Belkin for
$60 and that's not too bad...I guess
