# Power conditioning for home studios



## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

Anyone have any experience with the budget power conditioners....I'm thinking sub $500 or thereabouts. 

I'm assuming that the really cheap $100 ones are a waste of time....?


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## maikol (Nov 7, 2008)

Looks like quite all the cheap ones are just barely improved power strips (MOVs for a bit of surge protection, and maybe some kind of light filtering), so they're not going to do that much for power conditionning.


I'm afraid the effectiveness of a power conditionner is _heavily_ linked to its weight...:yes:

Think ferroresonant transformers (also called Constant Voltage Transformers), Isolation transformer, or maybe balanced power, or even a top grade online double conversion UPS (with sinusoidal output)...

...but all those are _never_ cheap! :spend:


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

Yeah, that was my thinking - it's all down to the transformer, and the bigger the better - but I see a lot of positive reviews of those 1u Furman's .....??


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## maikol (Nov 7, 2008)

jonathanm said:


> Yeah, that was my thinking - it's all down to the transformer, and the bigger the better - but I see a lot of positive reviews of those 1u Furman's .....??


I think those Furman units are very good power distributors for local racks, and you also get two lights to see your gear!


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

maikol said:


> I think those Furman units are very good power distributors for local racks, and you also get two lights to see your gear!


lol....pro audio syndrome? Why buy a $10 device when a $200 device will do? :spend:


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

The cheap UPS devices made by APC and the likes dont actually condition the power as they simply switch to battery when the power fails. The pricey ones actually run on the batteries all the time and this in its self will condition the power. I personally like Products from TripLite as they have high quality power bars with built in filters for each plug and surge protection with guarantee. They sell for less than $100 and are way better then Monster or any of the other over priced junk out there.


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## maikol (Nov 7, 2008)

I think most of the Online double conversion UPS don't actually really run all the time from the batteries (that would use those too quickly).
What they do is always convert the power from AC to DC, then back to AC, while keeping chargin the batteries









Courtesy of Irem.it (they make wery high grade UPS and power conditionners, BTW!)


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

yeah, that there is the conditioning I'm familiar with, the double conversion style. Which is why I'm not entirely sure what these cheap conditioners do...is it just filtering and voltage stabilization?


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

Alright, I can confirm that Michael is correct on this, after having got some info from Amazon of all places....

They basically just offer filtering and surge suppression, but in a nice fancy box..... 

The Tripp-Lites I looked at appear to have voltage regulation too - seems to be another box for the Furman range. Apart from that, the same thing really.


But mmmmmmmmmmmmmm the Furmans have those funky bendy lights :woohoo:


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## 0bazooka_joe0 (Mar 22, 2010)

Well as far as Home Studios go... I think the furman does the job. At least for me :T


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## ngarjuna (Mar 29, 2010)

The IT shop I work in recently went to Tripp Lite systems for UPS. We saw nearly 50% failure rate and the ones that didn't fail did not support the time/load that they were rated for. It's possible that we got shafted by the electrician who installed and configured the system but I am very wary of Tripp Lite UPS products right now despite their reputation in the business. APC may be rudimentary in comparison but they were far more reliable in keeping our servers running (and for the times/loads for which they were rated) and we ended up replacing a bunch of those expensive, professionally installed Tripp Lites with off the shelf APC.


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## maikol (Nov 7, 2008)

ngarjuna said:


> The IT shop I work in recently went to Tripp Lite systems for UPS. We saw nearly 50% failure rate and the ones that didn't fail did not support the time/load that they were rated for. It's possible that we got shafted by the electrician who installed and configured the system but I am very wary of Tripp Lite UPS products right now despite their reputation in the business. APC may be rudimentary in comparison but they were far more reliable in keeping our servers running (and for the times/loads for which they were rated) and we ended up replacing a bunch of those expensive, professionally installed Tripp Lites with off the shelf APC.


Wow, that's scary! :yikes:

By the way, another problem with UPS's is the they reject on the mains. They are basically big switching power supplies, with the output side isolated from the input side (IF it is an online double conversion UPS!). Which means that all the switching noise they produce stays on the input side, giving you (and themself in a way) dirtier power for everything that is not on the UPS.

They will also reject a lot of noise to ground, so if you don't have a very low impedance ground path it might also be worse for the gear that is on the UPS!

The way they are used in large server arrays is very specific, and in those places grounding is very very carefully done (large mesh grounding systems to obtain the lowest impedance path to ground to all the computers, and as equipotential ground paths as possible), as it is mandatory to keep the MTBF as low as possible.


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## Darnstrat (Jan 9, 2010)

ngarjuna said:


> The IT shop I work in recently went to Tripp Lite systems for UPS. We saw nearly 50% failure rate and the ones that didn't fail did not support the time/load that they were rated for. It's possible that we got shafted by the electrician who installed and configured the system but I am very wary of Tripp Lite UPS products right now despite their reputation in the business. APC may be rudimentary in comparison but they were far more reliable in keeping our servers running (and for the times/loads for which they were rated) and we ended up replacing a bunch of those expensive, professionally installed Tripp Lites with off the shelf APC.


We use nothing but APC power conditioners/UPS systems for our servers... the ability to monitor & control them, plus their reliability is hard to beat.

Be incredibly WARY of the simple surge protectors - most use a MOV that degrades with every single over-voltage condition. You have no way of knowing how many surges the device has encountered and the effectiveness of the MOV at protecting your equipment is 'iffy' at best.


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## maikol (Nov 7, 2008)

Darnstrat said:


> We use nothing but APC power conditioners/UPS systems for our servers... the ability to monitor & control them, plus their reliability is hard to beat.
> 
> Be incredibly WARY of the simple surge protectors - most use a MOV that degrades with every single over-voltage condition. You have no way of knowing how many surges the device has encountered and the effectiveness of the MOV at protecting your equipment is 'iffy' at best.


Absolutely!

MOVs have to be replaced often to be effective (every year or so?)!


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

Good info this :T

There is another discussion going on about power conditioning in the home studio forum, so I thought I'd cross reference the two posts for anyone interested.....the other thread is here:

http://www.proaudioshack.com/forums/power-grounding-accessories/28082-power-conditioning.html


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## fractile (Mar 15, 2009)

This has expanded beyond the under $100 mark, But have a Tripp-Lite UPS feeding a Furman AR-15 voltage regulator, then Furman IT-20 balanced power conditioner. My understanding is that it can reduce jitter in digital equipment it seems logical to me that balanced power is nicer to things like speaker magnets and transformers, etc. Am I ignoring that electronics really is virtually relative?


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## jonathanm (Mar 24, 2010)

fractile said:


> This has expanded beyond the under $100 mark, But have a Tripp-Lite UPS feeding a Furman AR-15 voltage regulator, then Furman IT-20 balanced power conditioner. My understanding is that it can reduce jitter in digital equipment it seems logical to me that balanced power is nicer to things like speaker magnets and transformers, etc. Am I ignoring that electronics really is virtually relative?


Actually it was meant to be under $500, but you're well over that too.... :spend:


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## fractile (Mar 15, 2009)

Ok, :innocent:
I'll start a new thread somewhere on reference system design


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