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Let's Talk Power


granodemostasa

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Hello, Nenso here. I am here to seek help for power. My question is very simple. Will buying power improve my sound significantly if I have a decent rig (which I don't at the moment but I'm working on it.) Another question is that in one of the Brickwall/Zerosurge units, all of the outlets are ONLY for protection from surge, and two of them are on at all times, am I right?

Which company buys from the other and slaps their brand on it like OEM? Zerosurge or Brickwall? I know it shouldn't matter but which company has a better deal?

man it's just question after question with you isn't it?

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Hello, Nenso here. I am here to seek help for power. My question is very simple. Will buying power improve my sound significantly if I have a decent rig (which I don't at the moment but I'm working on it.) Another question is that in one of the Brickwall/Zerosurge units, all of the outlets are ONLY for protection from surge, and two of them are on at all times, am I right?

Which company buys from the other and slaps their brand on it like OEM? Zerosurge or Brickwall? I know it shouldn't matter but which company has a better deal?

Save the tweaks for last. After you have your source, amp and headphones set.

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  • 2 weeks later...

someone once told me that most common UPS as those used for PCs are no good for audio gear because instead of a nice round sine wave, when they kick in on their battery they output a square wave that is no good for audio equipment

can anyone confirm this?

You're not actually supposed to use the battery power...It's there so you can turn off your PC normally, instead of it just flipping off (which can lead to nasty things).

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You're not actually supposed to use the battery power...It's there so you can turn off your PC normally, instead of it just flipping off (which can lead to nasty things).

err... i'm pretty sure the battery is there so that if power to your house cuts out it fills in until powers comes back or gives your system time to safely shut down.

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err... i'm pretty sure the battery is there so that if power to your house cuts out it fills in until powers comes back or gives your system time to safely shut down.

Most UPS's only last for like 15 minutes, unless you spend a crap load of money on them, or have components plugged into it that don't draw a lot of power.

They are there to fill in the gap before a generator comes on, or so you can finish a task and shut down your PC safely.

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your previous comment still doesn't make any sense

I don't know, anymore.

If you just let your PC abruptly shut off, you can have data corrupt and nasty stuff happen. I thought the point of a battery backup was so that you have time to shut off your PC, which is why most of them have a serial or USB interface to shut your PC down normally for you if you aren't there when the power goes out.

I will say though, that sound sounds really crappy when they come on. At least on mine, which is some weird off-brand one.

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here's my original question:

someone once told me that most common UPS as those used for PCs are no good for audio gear because instead of a nice round sine wave, when they kick in on their battery they output a square wave that is no good for audio equipment

can anyone confirm this?

It was answered and I was perfectly happy. I was then quoted and received this answer

You're not actually supposed to use the battery power...It's there so you can turn off your PC normally, instead of it just flipping off (which can lead to nasty things).

which is fine, but I'm still fairly sure that the batteries in UPSs kick in as soon as power is cut to it.

No, that's right, I'm not sure what issue DC has with your statement, I wish he would be more specific.

now specified

I think he's being an asshat just for the sake of it.

Please read the following important public announcement:

http://www.head-case.org/general_announcements/dont_be_an_asshat-t2556.0.html

nope, definitely not

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Yeah, I think that's what he meant, he was just phrasing it badly. I mean, obviously he didn't mean that "...you're not actually supposed to use the battery power...", ever, even though that's exactly what he said.

make makes much more sense, thank you.

but it's not like you can choose when the power cuts out, or when the battery kicks in for that matter hence the original question...

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I'm sorry, bad phrasing on my part.

What I meant was, when the power goes out and the battery comes on, you're just supposed to use the batter power to finish whatever task you're working on and shut off your PC, and yes, it does screw up sound if you try to listen to music while the battery is on.

At least, on my weird off-brand one.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm still looking around. I opted out of the richard gray stuff, apparently they are just really big inductors in parallel with the AC line. The literature says they actually can store energy and divert current back into the AC line thus helping your gear perform better, which is probably BS. I think the calculations work out that the inductor probably can store maybe 0.01VA (joules) of energy. They claim that the inductor acts as a "mechanical flywheel" that helps your gear perform more to ideal conditions, and states that this brings the power transformer from outside closer to your home. Yup.

I have just took notice of powervar. They appear to just be huge isolating transformers with some surge protection and HF AC filter as well. THey can be had for cheap even though some audiophiles are starting to dress them up and put cyro'd outlets on them and sell on audiogon. But I may pick up a used one on ebay, as they get dumped from hospitals consistently and sold there. I read somewhere that Kevin uses a 4kva isolating transformer, the one I am looking at is slightly under 2000 volts but can handle 16 amps of current which should be more than plenty. THe popular version appears to handle 12 amps of current and I believe the voltage rating was 1440.

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  • 1 month later...

Nope this is just for my headphone rig, source and zana thats it, should be plenty of headroom left. Here is a pic:

Powervar.jpg

I had an Absolute Power unit that looked almost exactly like the one in the picture. Obviously, one can go nuts and buy $140 outlets for these, but a solid $30 to 40 one will do just fine.

Mine had the typical HF rolloff and lack of focus (which most of these units exhibit IME), which improved a LOT when I bypassed the cheap high frequency capacitor filter (Green board) and installed some decent power cord instead of the puny stock cord..

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