Home > Consumer Reviews > Monster Cable MP HTS 1000 PowerCenter with Clean Power Stage 2 (v.2.0)

This unit did not work at all with my Direct TV receiver. I have a new Direct TV HD-Tivo DVR-250. It's an all in one unit. After hooking it up correctly, I could not receive any satellite signal. Removed this surge protector and everything went back to normal. I don't think it supports everything. Better check before you buy.

This powerstrip is good, but recently it caused two of my HD channels to drop out when the cable was connected through it. If you read the instructions, it tells you that all connections to your equipment must go through the PowerCenter in order to be covered by their warranty. When the channels stopped working, I called the cable company and they came out to see what the problem was. The cable guy right away said its probably the powerstrip because he has seen this many times before. I doubted him because it was working fine. Turned out he was right. He put the cable directly into the cable box instead of going through the powerstrip, and the channels came back. The connections were tight, and all the rest of the channels were fine, so that wasn't the problem.

Beyond that issue, the powerstrip works fine.

The product was certainly well made and heavy. However, it does not work with my Dish High Def Satellite service. When hooked up to the Dish per the instructions, the television signal will not come through the unit. When disconnected and plugged in the old way, the Dish signal comes through. I found this unsatisfactory because this is the newest version of this unit, the HTS1000 Mk II. I have read that older units will not work with Direct or Dish service; this was the newest unit and was supposed to have the bugs out of it. I spoke with two audio/video professionals about this problem and they agreed; the units do not permit the Dish Hi Def signal to pass through the unit. Case closed.

First, I can't comment on the HDTV and Satellite issues mentioned by other reviewers so I would check that out before buying. But with that being said this was a great purchase for me. And I highly recommend it.

I have been looking at fuzzy text and faint, slow moving horizontal ghosts on my Sony Trinitron TV for a while now. My Xbox connection is composite, my DVD is S-Video, my Cox cable is...well cable. For the most part I figured the poor visuals were due to the TV being low quality and the connection method. But now I know better! Let me give a brief example...

A few months ago I borrowed the S-video connector for the Xbox so I could see what the quality would look like. Of course the S-video on the Xbox rendered an image that was at least 50% better quality than the composite. That is what I would expect. I gave it back and resolved to get one later.

Last week I got the HTS-1000 and hooked up all my equipment. When I fired up the Xbox (hooked up via composite) the picture quality was about the same as it was when I hooked up the S-video. Even my wife, who thinks I am what too critical about such things, noticed the difference. She told me that she didn't expect to see a difference. She doesn't notice subtle quality in audio and video, but was surprised that she saw such a marked difference.

The cable TV is clearer, the DVD has more vivid colors...some of the improvement is hard to describe other than just saying the picture is soooo much better.

I will say this though, my home is small. The kitchen, with its high power drawing appliances, is close to the living room. All these appliances contribute to the dirty power. You could see less improvement if your home is laid out differently or have newer appliances.

I didn't give it 5 stars because it is bulky. It has plenty of room for power bricks, but it has a high profile. The strip that Monster sells that has a slim profile doesn't have room for bricks. Also, the schema for what devices are switched and what aren't doesn't make sense to me, but it is nice to have 4 outlets that are constant power.

Summary: If you have lines, ghosts, poor color, whatever...try this out it could make a world of difference.

5 stars. I'm now a believer. Skeptic, until I heard the difference with my own ears. I have a very nice 2-channel stereo system. PhaseTech speakers, Rotel 130W amp, B&K digital preamp, Pioneer SACD/DVD. I thought I needed a sub, but with this power strip added into my system I don't need a sub. Befor I could barly tell if my speakers were in or out of phase. Now it's obvious that I'm in phase throughout the spectrum. The imaging improved, the bass response is much lower and smoother. No boom, just so much better all the way around. Best bang for my buck yet! I have 3 rooms with gear so I bought 3 HTS PowerCenters; 1000, 1000MKII, and 2000. I noticed the huge improvement with all of them, but if I had too choose one I'd go with the MKII. I wonder if the other more expensive models could be that much better. If you doubt these things are for real, trust me - they made a great improvement to my $3500 stereo system.