johnpaul215 Posted December 11, 2011 Report Share Posted December 11, 2011 What kind of power strip (using the term loosely) are you using on your carts? I don't have a particularly special one. My setup is: wall or geni power -> power strip -> cart power distro box -> expensive gear I have my AA and 9volt battery chargers in the power strip as well. Should I have a specific power strip? By that, should I have one with a high protection threshold, or noise filtering abilities? I will probably be upgrading the cart power next year (probably something from Remote Audio or PSC). I never noticed any kind of line noise that was because of my AC power. Have I just been lucky? I know that no power strips are 100% effective, but should I be using something better than the fairly generic computer/electronic surge protector I have? Some of my friends that do sound reenforcement type setups can't say enough about the problems they solved by upgrading their power conditioning units. We're in a different situation, but I am not sure if it's luck that I have been ok so far. Offhand the only issues I ever encountered were a charger you could "hear" when it was cycling off an on. I also had an issue when I was trying to use a pure sine wave inverter, the first one I tried caused a terrible buzz that was only fixed by replacing the unit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 (edited) " no power strips are 100% effective " ?? HUH ?? most are 100% effective as power strips! many have surge protection, too, which tend to be pretty effective on surges --as specified.(some are even guaranteed, but stick with name brands!) As has been discussed in the past. there are a number of power conditioners (aka filters) and/or regulators available; they come in different forms, some even built into power strips. Furman's are popular with the MI crowd, but I have always preferred APC by Schnieder Edited December 12, 2011 by studiomprd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Gilchrist Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 many have surge protection, too, which is 100% effective on surges A bad surge protector can do more harm than good and price is no indication of quality. Both Furman and APC products are OK generally speaking. I unfortunately learned this lesson the hard way, when our local electric utility had an "issue" which cost us a TV, several hard drives and a computer. Best regards, Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 Of course, some conditions go beyond specifications, and also even with the various name brands, you get what you pay for, and spec's and prices vary with models. The lower price Furman's are kind of a joke, IMHO. Also note that there are some specialty units from manufacturers specializing in Production Sound equipment, including some with input filtering and output filtering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Gilchrist Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 Of course, some conditions go beyond specifications, and also even with the various name brands, you get what you pay for, and spec's and prices vary with models. The lower price Furman's are kind of a joke, IMHO. In other words 100% effective is an overstatement, to say the least, humble opinion or not. For the record, the trouble our power company had is evidently quite common. Best regards, Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 Well..... Very little is actually 100%. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Gilchrist Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 Well..... Very little is actually 100%. Then say so. Saying something is 100% effective doesn't really help when it's not the case. Best regards, Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 No power strips are 100% reliable No surge protectors are 100% reliable No power filtering or conditioning is ever 100% perfect, or reliable. there are a lot of good alternatives that come really, really close, though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Gilchrist Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 there are a lot of good alternatives that come really, really close, though... Share your knowledge, please. In my experience the closer you get to 100%, the higher the cost per increment in performance becomes. If you have some closely held power filtering secret please feel free to share. Best regards, Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 (edited) " the closer you get to 100%, the higher the cost per increment in performance becomes. " Exactly, and nicely put, this applies to just about everything. There is no secret, I have had 100% success with some of the APC by Schnieder, and they were not inexpensive, but more than met their spec's, exceeded my expectations and were completely reliable (aka worth it). Tripp Lite also makes some excellent (but maybe not 100%, either) units I'd prefer over Furman. BTW, I also have tucked away an old AC power controller from a 1970's era DEC mini-computer; it weighs in at close to 100 pounds. and provides about 10 amps of really clean and stable output from all sorts of dirty and or fluctuating power sources... Has served me well, pretty brute force bulletproof, but also pretty heavy! Edited December 12, 2011 by studiomprd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Gilchrist Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 There is no secret, I have had 100% success with some of the APC by Schnieder, and they were not inexpensive, but more than met their spec's, exceeded my expectations and were completely reliable (aka worth it). Tripp Lite also makes some excellent (but maybe not 100%, either) units I'd prefer over Furman. Next time, save some time and stop being coy about what you know. 100% is a quite steep performance curve to meet. Just sayin'..... Seriously. JG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 " As has been discussed in the past. there are a number of power conditioners (aka filters) and/or regulators available; they come in different forms, some even built into power strips. Furman's are popular with the MI crowd, but I have always preferred APC by Schnieder " OK, thanks for keeping me just about absolutely, almost completely, 99.999% accurate, mostly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Gilchrist Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 OK, thanks for keeping me just about absolutely, almost completely, 99.999% accurate, mostly. Whatever you say, Senator. Unless you are certain the outlet you've plugged into has a good ground, surge protectors are useless. Best regards, Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 Thanks, Jim... Holiday regards, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Graff Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 Years ago I did a lot of research and decided upon this brand: http://www.zerosurge.com/ I have the 2R15W (#002-00703) - $159.00 They also make rack mount models. I just plug a relatively cheap CyberPower rack mount power strip into it however. Read all the specs and do some research and you will find that cheap surge protectors do not offer much real protection. That's my opinion anyway. PG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Gilchrist Posted December 12, 2011 Report Share Posted December 12, 2011 <snip> Read all the specs and do some research and you will find that cheap surge protectors do not offer much real protection. That's my opinion anyway. PG Mine as well, learned the hard way. Surge protection that actually works may cost many times more than the hardware it protects. Best regards, Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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