the t.racks VM-100 Voltage Meter

If you are looking for something to power all your rack equipment and amp head in a clean way then look elsewhere.
This is not a power conditioner it is simply a voltage meter with rack lights and the ability to power things. I will admit i made the mistake in thinking that it would perform in the same way as power conditioners such as the Furman i ended up buying afterwards.
The positives of this product are that the voltage meter is a useful feature that helped me keep an eye on voltage in less that reputable venues. The lights worked well and helped me in low lighting to fiddle with settings on my amp.
As far as those functions go i was very happy. the negatives were that when i tried to use this product to power my tube amp head, 4 rack units and a pedal power supply it was incredibly noisy, the buzz at some points became louder than the amp itself. yes it did power the units theres no argument there but i couldn't use it live.

If you want a rack mounted voltage meter and light then this is a pretty good product but if you want something to power all your gear, your going to have to bite the bullet and pay the circa £300 price tag for a power conditioner.

Bought this as a primary power source for my rack consisting of a PC, an X32 and a Kemper. It has always been reliable since the beginning and it's still working perfectly fine after almost a year.
Anyway this power plug / voltage meter has also 2 downsides.
the first is that the power cable isn't detachable, so you're stuck with the one provided which can be too short or to long, like in my case.
It's also a schuko plug, so the european standard but also the bigger plug format, very expensive in terms of space.
The 2nd downside is the quality of the elements. The LEDs of the voltage-meter are very cheap, also, the two lights are halogen and not LED lights, this create high temperatures in case of prolongued use of the lights, also it make extremely hard to find replacement bulbs for those lights.
Don't panic, as said before the product still works perfectly fine after almost 1 year, so i guess the quality of those components is enough, even if those are cheap. Definitely best bang for the bucks.

The unit came well packaged, and with a Euro plug. I'm very capable electrically so I had no problem replacing the plug - so that's fine - I'm sure an adapter would work just fine too.

As I'm in the UK the voltage reading is higher than would be expected in Europe (240v vs 220v) so the LED bar graph reads on high side.

I bought this as a way of tidying up my rack unit and fixing the age old 'reach behind the desk to switch stuff on and off conundrum'. It has done this perfectly and made a somewhat annoying task a thing of the past. It also now means that should I want to transport my rack I only have 3 cables to unplug (power, ADAT IN, ADAT OUT). Excellent!

The dim-able (and somewhat redirect-able) lights are also really useful, if you're getting the lights low for a mixing session and you need a quick light to adjust settings - bingo. A nice added extra.

The only down side is that it does NOT come with the IEC->IEC connectors needed to run from the unit to your rack gear. That would be a good thing to mention in the product description.

I didn't buy this thinking it was a conditioner - it is not one. If you're looking for a cheap solution to tidy cables and manage your power this is a bargain.

quality isnt great, its not very well designed but it is useful and priced about right.

"Filter to protect connected equipment from power surges and interference" is basically a single varistor costing around 10c (the same kind you'd find in a cheap surge protected extension lead for 5euro)

no RFI or EMI filtering in this unit. The cheap varistor will eventually die depending how bad your electricity supply is, power spikes slowly eradicate its usefulness and you wont know when its not working.

you get what you pay for, and of course its not a 'power conditioner', even the well known brands budget models sold as 'power conditioners' are basically the same as this VM-100 but with better filtering and better parts.


buy this until you can afford something better

I've already bought one of these last year and was happy with it until it developed a sort of fault. i was getting a very small shock when sometimes I touch it. It was not too bad but was annoying. So I thought it maybe something to do with my gear setup and grounding. I gave that to a friend who needed one and he never complained from it. So now when I needed another light unit with power there is nothing around better value than this unit. I thought I give it a try again, so far it's been good. Just make sure you ground your equipment and use plastic type washers between your rack screws and the units.

This rack mounted power supply with lights and voltmeter fills the needs for powering most smaller racks. Very nice to get both voltmeter, power outlets and lights in one single 1U.

Personally, I would like it to have a detachable IEC input as well as outlets, but good price weighs up for minor inconveniences.

Room for improvement? Yea, outlets with Neutrik Powercon with be a solid 10/10.

Maximum capacity of 10A total should be sufficient for most users.

I can highly recommend this product, and just put in an order for another one. Fast shipping and handling as always. Thumbs up for Thomann!