Power conditioner improving the sound in your studio?

[Glenn Bucci]

I recently decided on purchasing two Monster Power 8 outlet power conditioners for my studio. I really should have done this a couple of years ago. I just was never sure how much of a difference it would make. Well, I have to tell you when playing back music in my studio, I hear a little more depth and detail with my monitors that really made me quite happy. Of course it's just not the computer, and the monitors going through this power conditioner, but also my pre's, channel strips, Presonus Central Station, Mackie Controllers, etc.

I highly recommend trying out a power conditioner for your studio. You don't have to pay over $1,000 for the high end one's to make a difference. I spent about $600 in my studio and the difference is quite nice. Not to mention, it protects your gear against spikes and helps even things out with the current.

[. . . Delete This User . . .]

hmmm either you had REALLY poor mains supply, or you've bought $600 of oleo serpentis

might have been better spent on more acoustic treatment....

[Martin Walker]

Agreed - I've reviewed expensive and very heavy power conditioners that remove common mode interference, and have heard a very worthwhile difference when a budget hi-fi is plugged into one, but very little when the conditioner was plumbed into my studio.

This suggests that the studio gear was already less prone to muck riding piggy-back on the mains because it included better quality filtering of its own in the first place.

However, if you can hear a difference on your system Glenn then that's great

Martin

[Hugh Robjohns]

And we are talking about American mains supplies ehre which are inherently more prone to muck than the UK and most European supplies.

Like everyone else here, I've tried countless mains filters and conditioners iver the years and never found any worthwhile benefit with my own equipment, but it it works for you, go for it.

Hugh

[Glenn Bucci]

The States are a little behind the UK on some things (great monitors, great EQ's, and electricity). I think part of my problem is I have not put a separate breaker in my home for my recording gear in my studio. I have over 20 plugs going into 2 outlets and I found that with the power conditioner that the sound on my Focal Twins offers a little more depth and detail. Not to mention it protects my gear from a lightning strike a little better than the cheap ones you buy for $8.00 in the local hardware store.

Here in the States it's quite common for pro studios to have power conditioners as well. Believe me, if I did not hear a difference, they would have been returned to the store very quickly.

I have enough acoustic treatment in my studio by the way....if that is even possible.

[MarcB]

I use a double online converter UPS for my computer/monitors/digital stuff. only 500watts and I've only hit 25% of its rating. near silent in operation and is a 2U rackmount thing.

I suffered with mains fluctuations going from 240-260v, now it's a steady 230v.

Not bad for £250

[ken long]

And we are talking about American mains supplies ehre which are inherently more prone to muck than the UK and most European supplies.

Absolutely.

[Glenn Bucci]

I have looked into this issue on power conditioner's more closely and this is what I have found.

1. Not all power conditioners affect the sound of music out of your monitors the same. Some have different filters and components inside their units and you may like one over the other.

2. Depending on your local area (in the States at least) some electric company's with the way they provide power, the type of electric wires used in your area, what percentage of power at the power plant being used (summers is higher due to more A/C being used in many areas--stress loads at the plant) , and local transformers in your area may affect the sound your getting.

So in some areas of where a home is, you may not hear any difference, in some areas it will offer an improvement with the power conditioner, and in some areas maybe even worse. Guitar player Eric Johnson tried out some high end power conditioner in his studio in Texas and he and his engineer did not like the clamped down sound the conditioner added to the sound coming out of his monitors. Just plug in straight to the outlets for them sounded best.

In the States, Equitech is the most popular high end power conditioner company. They have transformers in their units which of course will affect the sound to some degree. In their literature, they mentioned there can short burst of power especially in class AB monitors amps and self powered speakers. What their units do is to help provide balanced power.

They also go into how electricty can be a dangerous thing if there are undected flaws in on listed equipment to met low standards of Standard #1012 to get a UL listeing label. I think this goes back to what Martin said about using a power conditioner with low end gear that has poor power supplies. However on higher end gear, this should be less of an issue.

In my area, I just found the sound of my music to have a little more depth and a tad bit more detail. I live in a newer community with homes that are less than 10 years old by the way. I am sure if I try listening to my recording gear in a high end apartment in New York City, then a lower income apartment with aged electrical gear coming into the building, or go to a small town in Alabama, I may get different results as well.

[dmills]

All of which really says that the power supplies in your gear are suspect!

It is not rocket science to make a DC supply that does its thing over the range of mains voltages normally expected and does not suffer from RF or the sorts of transients normally seen, the fact that some manufacturers don't bother is far more of a reflection on the extremely price sensitive MI/Prosumer market then it is on the need for expensive external boxes.

Balanced power is a considerably more tricky thing in the UK then it is in the US due to the higher potential fault voltages and the fact that UK equipment is all fused on the expectation that while the 'neutral' is a power carrying conductor, it has negligible voltage to the safety earth. The general advice over here is not to go there and the subject was done to death here a few years back.....

For some reason (Lower supply voltage to start with, extensive overhead medium and LV distribution, smallish local transformers, neutral/earth bonds in consumer panels (That often get left installed in sub panels), wire nuts instead of proper connections ....) the US power system seems to cause far more pain for audio then the UK one does, and SOLA CVTs or boxes from the like of Surge-X seem to be commonplace. I would not extrapolate from this to any particular need for that stuff in the UK.

I would however be interested to see some before and after measurements of audio performance (These always seem to be missing from posts advocating power conditioning).

Regards, Dan.

[Exalted Wombat]

Here in the States it's quite common for pro studios to have power conditioners as well.

I'm told they need them!

Believe me, if I did not hear a difference, they would have been returned to the store very quickly.

Yeah ... but when people buy expensive "interconnects" they often hear a difference. Which somehow never survives proper double-blind testing. It's not their fault

[Glenn Bucci]

All of which really says that the power supplies in your gear are suspect!

For some reason (Lower supply voltage to start with, extensive overhead medium and LV distribution, smallish local transformers, neutral/earth bonds in consumer panels (That often get left installed in sub panels), wire nuts instead of proper connections ....) the US power system seems to cause far more pain for audio then the UK one does, and SOLA CVTs or boxes from the like of Surge-X seem to be commonplace. I would not extrapolate from this to any particular need for that stuff in the UK.

I agree with your points here.

I am also wondering if in the UK with 220 power being so much higher than the US 120 volts that a little up and down on the power makes less of a difference (perhaps not noticeable at all) compared to when there is a slight change at the lower 120 volts? I won't even get into Japan where half the country uses 50 volts and half uses 60 volts.

I never understood why you chaps on the right hand side of the pond felt 220 was necessary. I know countless kids (including myself) put our fingers in the outlet when we were young and got shocked. In the UK, I guess you could die if you did that. Wouldn't lower volts be safer in the home with children as well as if an electrcial arc occurred in a home which affected insulation in a wall or something?

[Dark Fader]

All of which really says that the power supplies in your gear are suspect!

For some reason (Lower supply voltage to start with, extensive overhead medium and LV distribution, smallish local transformers, neutral/earth bonds in consumer panels (That often get left installed in sub panels), wire nuts instead of proper connections ....) the US power system seems to cause far more pain for audio then the UK one does, and SOLA CVTs or boxes from the like of Surge-X seem to be commonplace. I would not extrapolate from this to any particular need for that stuff in the UK.

I agree with your points here.

I am also wondering if in the UK with 220 power being so much higher than the US 120 volts that a little up and down on the power makes less of a difference (perhaps not noticeable at all) compared to when there is a slight change at the lower 120 volts?

There is quite a bit of variation in the UK supply (240v supposedly), but in my experience it is very clean compared to other countries. The UK is also unique in that during commercial breaks at peak viewing times about 8-10 million kettles can get turned on at the same time! I think the UK probably has the best mains supply in the world!

[dmills]

A big part of it is wire size, lets say you want to keep voltage drops to say 5% of the nominal supply voltage.

Lets also say you have a 2000W kettle (a bit pony compared to some over here, but run with it), now at 120V that kettle pulls ~16.6 amps and the maximum cable resistance to maintain a 5% drop is 0.36 ohms for a 6V drop, doing the same 5% calculation at 240V allows a 12V drop for 5% and only needs ~8.3A so the maximum cable resistance goes up to 1.44ohms.

Given we are massive tea drinkers the voltage had to be set high enough to allow at least a 3KW kettle.

What this means is that for a given load we only need 1/4 of the copper area that you do to maintain the same percentage voltage drop, combine that with the UK tendency to use our weird ring circuits which are capable of 32A total load while staying within voltage drop limits and our supplies tend to be a LOT stiffer at the point of use then yours.

Most of the UK population is in cities and most power distribution in our cities is underground, which significantly reduces induced disturbances (Lightning), and the local distribution transformers are larger and fewer which means that step load changes from any one property will be a smaller proportion of the total load on the transformer then is the case when a pole pig is shared by only a few houses.

A lot of the real reason the voltage ended up where it did was that it was a reasonable compromise between all the local systems when the first national grid went in (The local systems were mostly based on whatever the local factory that had the generators used).

Safety is an interesting one, firstly ALL UK 13A sockets are shuttered so it is difficult to stick a fork in them, as the shutters will not open without an earth pin present. So kiddies seldom manage to access the power (Ok, I did but .....).
On the up side, no wire nuts, no aluminum wiring, no using conduit as the protective earth conductor, all modern appliance cordage is double insulated, and there are fuses in the plugs!

A comparison of electrical fire rates between the two systems would make interesting reading (Fire is more of a current then a voltage thing).

Regards, Dan.

[. . . Delete This User . . .]

in addition to Dan's pretty thorough notes , by and large, it's current that kills, not voltage....

(witness the Van de Graaff generator, and static electricity not generally being fatal experiments as kids in school)

[Exalted Wombat]

Given we are massive tea drinkers the voltage had to be set high enough to allow at least a 3KW kettle.

Oh, THAT'S why

[dmills]

by and large, it's current that kills, not voltage....

True, but betraying a rather dangerous misunderstanding!

It is current through the body (typically the heart) that causes electrocution, but that current has to be driven by something (I=V/R and all that), so the current is the voltage across the body divided by the impedance of the human body.....

Double the voltage across the body and you double the current (all other things being equal (which they are not)).

For all intents and purposes (as far as this is concerned), both US and UK mains supplies constitute a voltage source (that is to say are capable of arbitrarily large amounts of current), so yes, getting across a UK supply is more dangerous then getting across a US one, as the higher voltage will force more current through the body.

The van de graff case is interesting as those generators have a very high source impedance which means that the voltage collapses almost instantly when any kind of load is placed upon the machine (One might make 500KV but only be able to supply 10uA, you place a body across that the voltage will instantly collapse and (after the capacitance has discharged, only 10uA will flow). This is unlike the mains which can keep putting out 230V at many amps indefinitely should the load impedance be low enough.

The interesting safety case actually is to compare the rates at which electrical fires cause fatalities as I suspect that the larger currents combined with the widespread use of timber frame construction is a bigger issue then the extra electrocutions.

Regards, Dan.

[Dark Fader]

Thanks Dan, that was most enlightening, if you'll pardon the pun.

[Glenn Bucci]

In looking at the manual of this Monster box it states, the unit performs two tasks, noise filteration and noise isolation. The AC power that contains electromagnetic and radio frequency noise it removes. Perhaps the UK does not have too much of this problem with most of your wires being underground. Not sure how much radio waves affect high tension wires that are hanging on poles in the US, but the power conditioner seems to help in my area.

[Exalted Wombat]

Of course, once I saw the word "Monster" I was put off the device! Is this the same "Monster" who peddle over-hyped over-priced cables to the more gullible amongst us?

[Dark Fader]

Of course, once I saw the word "Monster" I was put off the device! Is this the same "Monster" who peddle over-hyped over-priced cables to the more gullible amongst us?

It's the very same company that also have some dubious anti-competitive business practices. They've never had and never will have a penny off me!