Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - POWER! Thoughts on CLEAN power conditioners

Kiwiburger · 7th January 2008, 04:43 AM

There are a whole host of potential AC problems - and some 'conditioners' only tackle a small number of them.

I have nasty AC power, and the only real solution is 100% recycling power. I.e. - running a sinewave power inverter off a battery.

A UPS is supposedly just that - but usually there is an element of compromise. Often the battery only kicks in if the voltage drops, which means the regular mains is connected most of the time. A normal UPS stops your computer from going down in a short blackout, but isn't a clean audio solution.

Trying to do this properly is very expensive - and most 'power conditioners' are sold by snake oil merchants and hifi salesmen. Anyone can put some varistors in a box and claim spike supression.

Often the garbage enters via the electrical earth. It's amazing how much crap is sent to earth by modern electronics. And not necessarily within your control. (Although last night I found my electric shaver - which flashes a LED when it's fully charged - was dumping noise into my bass guitar chain).

I'm about to install a power inverter to supplied clean power to my studio, and run all the important stuff off a bank of car batteries. I might add some solar panels, but i'll probably just keep them on trickle charge. Or - I might buy a hefty transformer to supplement it.

The beauty of running a 12 or 24V sinewave inverter is that this is the cleanest power you can get. I can get all sorts of noise and clicks coming and going. And the harmonics on my AC get nasty at times during the day/night - this shows up as excessive transformer buzzing. I've proved to myself that an inverter really cleans this up.

The other big advantage - I can run a truely isolated earth. I already have a dedicated earth spike, but I have voltage drop that gives me a small but annoying potential difference between neutral and ground, which drives some unbalanced gear crazy. By having a battery isolated rig, I hope to kill all these problems.

I might even use my 5kVA centre tapped isolating transformer to get 2 phase balanced power from the inverter. I did some experiments a while back with balanced 2 phase power, and came to the conclusion that the main benefits came from having an isolated ground. But I possibly didn't have enough gear connected up to really test the theory. In theory, balanced 2 phase power makes ground loops impossible ... it won't cost me anything to try it again.

7th January 2008, 04:43 AM	#3
Kiwiburger Lives for gear Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 3,758	There are a whole host of potential AC problems - and some 'conditioners' only tackle a small number of them. I have nasty AC power, and the only real solution is 100% recycling power. I.e. - running a sinewave power inverter off a battery. A UPS is supposedly just that - but usually there is an element of compromise. Often the battery only kicks in if the voltage drops, which means the regular mains is connected most of the time. A normal UPS stops your computer from going down in a short blackout, but isn't a clean audio solution. Trying to do this properly is very expensive - and most 'power conditioners' are sold by snake oil merchants and hifi salesmen. Anyone can put some varistors in a box and claim spike supression. Often the garbage enters via the electrical earth. It's amazing how much crap is sent to earth by modern electronics. And not necessarily within your control. (Although last night I found my electric shaver - which flashes a LED when it's fully charged - was dumping noise into my bass guitar chain). I'm about to install a power inverter to supplied clean power to my studio, and run all the important stuff off a bank of car batteries. I might add some solar panels, but i'll probably just keep them on trickle charge. Or - I might buy a hefty transformer to supplement it. The beauty of running a 12 or 24V sinewave inverter is that this is the cleanest power you can get. I can get all sorts of noise and clicks coming and going. And the harmonics on my AC get nasty at times during the day/night - this shows up as excessive transformer buzzing. I've proved to myself that an inverter really cleans this up. The other big advantage - I can run a truely isolated earth. I already have a dedicated earth spike, but I have voltage drop that gives me a small but annoying potential difference between neutral and ground, which drives some unbalanced gear crazy. By having a battery isolated rig, I hope to kill all these problems. I might even use my 5kVA centre tapped isolating transformer to get 2 phase balanced power from the inverter. I did some experiments a while back with balanced 2 phase power, and came to the conclusion that the main benefits came from having an isolated ground. But I possibly didn't have enough gear connected up to really test the theory. In theory, balanced 2 phase power makes ground loops impossible ... it won't cost me anything to try it again. __________________ Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way he'll be a mile away, and you'll have his shoes.