A few questions concerning the PS8

[G8YU]

A brief history: I had my Hydra Alpha 2 plugged into a power strip (I know that's not optimal). I was going to replace the power strip with a WireWorld Matrix 2; but somehow I ended up buying a PS8 instead. The included literature and some things I've read online left me with a few questions.

1. The literature mentions the PS8 being used as a outlet expansion for the Triton. Should I be plugging the PS8 into the Hydra Alpha 2 instead of the other way around? I assume the best performance would be not daisy chaining them in either direction though.
Currently I have the PS8 plugged into the wall with a Diamondback Platinum. A laptop computer, powered speakers, CD player, "wall warts", and the Hydra Alpha (with a Ztron Cobra) is plugged into the PS8. The Hyda Alpha has a DAC and headphone amp connected.

2. I assume the PS8's eight outlets are four pairs. Should I keep noisy things like the laptop isolated on it's own (nothing in the adjoining outlet) or are all the outlets electrically the same?

3. I thought the Defender was supposed to be plugged into the first outlet on the PS8. The literature made it seem like the Defender works better when plugged into the wall where the PS8 is plugged in? I can understand the filter still absorbing noise on the line with the Defender on the wall; but how does the surge protection still protect what is plugged into the PS8 or prevent the the devices from cross contaminating each other with noise on the PS8? (Maybe I need to brush up on how electrical current behaves in order to understand)

4. The literature said to use the discs with the SSFs. I thought those were just furniture protectors and the best performance was with the SSF spike in direct contact with the floor or shelf? (I guess you'll say to try it with and without the discs)

5. I'm considering short extension cords, such as Power Strip Liberators, for my wall warts (AC adapters) on the PS8 to avoid having a wall wart upside down (hot and neutral reversed). Any suggestions on a good quality, short extension cord like those? I suppose I could make my own with quality power cord and connectors.

6. WireWorld makes it a point to advertise that the Matrix 2 uses the star grounding method. How does the PS8 compare to that? Is it star grounded and you just don't state such in the specs?

[GrantS]

Hi,

I'll be happy to answer your questions. In the future, these would be best answered via our customer-service e-mail in terms of receiving a quick reply and more personalized service.

I highly recommend sending questions to cservice@shunyata.com or via the link on our web-site. Due to travel, I don't get here that often but will always have access to our e-mail to answer more in-depth system questions.

1. Ideally, you should run the PS8 and Hydra -a 2 independently, each to a wall duplex. If you need to daisy them for easy access reasons, I'd put the C-19 Cobra on the PS-8 to the wall if you are plugging the -a 2 in series off of the PS-8. Otherwise, the bottleneck for current is the Diamondback and it should be the Cobra in that scenario.

2. Yes, the PS 8 outlets are each duplex's, so yes, plugging the noisiest components away from the most noise-sensitive electronics makes perfect sense.

3. You may plug the Defender in either location and it will be effective at both protection and noise-filtering. At the wall, it will catch and defeat any surge further away from the electronics, so if your primary concern is protection, that location makes sense. In terms of shared noise, plugging it into the first PS8 outlet makes sense as it is nearer to component noise sources. These are merely theoretical suggestions however, because the Defender will do a good job of protection and noise-dissipation no matter which of those two locations it is placed.

4. We found in our testing that placing the discs under the points of the SSF simply sounds better, so we recommend they be used that way. You can perform your own comparisons and let us know.

5. We don't have any favorites of those that are available. Most of these are more or less commodity items, unless you can find one that appears to be better made than others. We'd love to know about them if you find some that have a construction advantage.

6. "Star-grounding" is a marketing term that means the internal wire-grounding in a power-device is equidistant from each outlet, minimizing the potential for ground-hum and noise. Our Hydra products use the ZPP-DS buss-system, which go way beyond "star-grounding" concept with a direct-connect buss. The Venom PS8 uses massive internal wiring to simulate that connection integrity at a lower cost, so the answer is yes, the PS8 is "star-grounded" and will not create any grounding or noise issues for systems.

I hope some of this is helpful. Please contact us directly with any follow up so we can be sure to get to your questions in a more direct way.

Best regards,

Grant
Shunyata Research

[G8YU]

Thank you very much, Grant!
I considered emailing the questions, but I asked them here so that everyone would have access to the answers. I might not be the only one wondering about the SSF discs, Defender placement or similar PS8 questions. I would email for system specific problems and upgrade recommendations though.

[GrantS]

I'm happy to answer your questions here as long as you are ok with occasional delays in reply. For faster response e-mail works best, but I check in here as often as I can. We'll be in Munich this week for a trade show, but i'll be looking in as time allows if you have follow up.

Best regards,

Grant
Shunyata Research

[G8YU]

I have my Shunyata products on a solid maple floor. Now that I'm using the SSF discs they wobble on the feet. I think the SSF are supposed to be kept finger tight with the black gasket (washer) between the chassis and foot. Should I use thin paper as shims under one disc or just leave out the loosest disc to let it stand on three feet? My PS8 came with a clear plastic or nylon gasket between the chassis and rubber foot on one of the feet. Is that meant to be used as a leveling shim?