Power conditioners?

[dickiefunk]

Hi,

I’m interested to find out if a power conditioner would be beneficial for my studio.
At the moment, I have a dual mains socket by my mixing/recording equipment which I then have 3-4 mains plus board extensions for all my equipment :-

Computer + 2x monitor screens
Neumann KH120’s + Eve TS108 sub
Motu 828es interface
2x Warm Audio TB12 preamps
2x Klark Teknik compressors + 1x Klark Teknik EQ
DACS headphone amp
Electric drum kit

I’ve noticed on the very occasional I get a very faint hum when tracking that generally can only be heard if you raise the volume of the recording track.
Is their a general do’s and don’t’s when plugging these in?

Would a power conditioner be a worthwhile investment?
If I were to add a power conditioner would a single unit be enough to do the whole studio with plug boards connected to it or would I need multiple power conditioners to plug every piece of equipment directly into the units?

[Hugh Robjohns]

I don't believe a power conditioner would be of any benefit. A low level num will be due to grounding issues or EM coupling between the mains transformers in some equipment and audio cabling or other equipment.

I run my whole studio off a dual wall socket, one of which feeds a UPS for the computer gear, and the other feeds everything else. I have no hums at all, even with the monitoring cranked, but I did have to spend some time finessing the grounding on a few bits of kit.

H

[The Red Bladder]

I love the way this subject keeps popping up every few weeks - it just proves the old army saying "Bulls**t beats brains!"

I once did a series of extensive tests on various power conditioners and discovered that if they did make a difference, it was only very slight and was a change for the worse!

[Hugh Robjohns]

I think the most useful thing most do is provide rack lighting and a power distribution point!