Power conditioners anyone ever tried using computer server UPS?

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. Read 4167 times.

toocool4

Power conditioners anyone ever tried using computer server UPS instead of the over priced audiophile ones?

I have tried dedicated audio power conditioners and heard what they can do, but the price in the UK for good ones are £2000+ I would rather put that money into my system.

Anyway I decided to get a very sophisticated double conversion UPS meaning the AC is converted to DC then regenerated back to pure sine wave AC, I got a Emerson Liebert GXT4 3000VA / 2700W UPS https://www.vertivco.com/en-ca/products-catalog/critical-power/uninterruptible-power-supplies-ups/liebert-gxt4-ups-3000va2/. The first thing I had to do was change the internal case fans to very quiet ones, the ones that came in the unit sounds like and aircraft is about to take off. With the new quiet fans, the sound is down to a whisper and I need to turn everything off in the listening room and be near the UPS to hear it.
In the UK we use 240V and I have noticed my power in the flat fluctuates between 225V – 239V, I set the UPS to give out a steady 240V no matter what the input voltage is doing.

I connected the UPS to the system, I was expecting the noise floor to be lower. I was not prepared for what was about to happen once everything was up and running.

Wow the first thing I noticed was depth of the image, then the clarity and separations of instruments and vocals. The next thing, which really threw me, was the bottom end just dropped wow the bass was so deep and tight and faster and I felt it. The bass was not bloated or woolly like you would get on a beats headphones. Wow I would never have thought a good power conditioner could do all that.

The last time I heard this level of improvement in my system was when I tried the latest version of my pre-amp and that was £2800 more than my current Pre-amp.

All of this have been achieved at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated audiophile power conditioner and this being a UPS, it will also run my system should there be a power cut. It should run my system for at least 1.5 hours before the battery dies.

I know one thing this UPS is here to stay.   

Watch this to know how the Emerson Liebert GXT4 works, it’s just amazing a superb upgrade to my system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arjWAnKxMMw
I am running Spectral Audio pre / power.

If you are thinking of an audiophile power conditioner, give a UPS a try first just make sure you get one that put's out pure sine wave and does re-generation and not line interactive.
 

MttBsh

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 691
Looks like a great UPS but at a price of $2,588.99 I'm not sure how it is "a fraction of the cost of a dedicated audiophile power conditioner"

toocool4

PS Audio Power Plant P10 £4999
AudioQuest Niagara 7000 £7495
Shunyata D6000T $4995

The UPS i am using also has the advantage of running the system if the power should go out, the other ones are just conditioners and will go off if there is not power.

GentleBender

You could always choose a smaller unit with less runtime to save money. The Liebert GXT4-1000RT120 UPS goes for $782 and has everything the 3000VA does minus the extended runtime without power and only 900 watts out instead of 2700 watts for the 3000VA. Pretty sure 900 watts would run many systems with no problem.

JDUBS

This has been talked about a bunch before.  I had a GXT2-3000 for a while and liked it a lot.

-Jim

toocool4

This has been talked about a bunch before.  I had a GXT2-3000 for a while and liked it a lot.

-Jim

What are you using now?

rollo

  • Industry Participant
  • Posts: 5439
  • Rollo Audio Consulting -
PS Audio Power Plant P10 £4999
AudioQuest Niagara 7000 £7495
Shunyata D6000T $4995

The UPS i am using also has the advantage of running the system if the power should go out, the other ones are just conditioners and will go off if there is not power.

  PIAudio Uberbuss and Digibuss combo both for under $1400 are more effective than any UPS I ever tried. That is all we use at Audio Shows.


charles

JDUBS

What are you using now?

Surgex-1120-rt


I like it better...but of course it doesn't offer the ability to run my system should the power go out, but I think I'll make do ok.

-Jim

paulg

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 14
I am new to Audio Circle and this thread is kinda old, but it's a topic that's in my wheelhouse.

toocool4 is right on. This particular type of UPS is what you want to found everything else on. These are true on-line double conversion UPS, and the Emerson, both Liebert and Sola brands, is particularly desirable. You can get them in various kva ratings. These UPS have highly sophisticated banks of rectifiers that deliver near ripple-free DC and high precision inverters that reconstruct the AC. They deliver very well regulated sine-wave.

What they do is accept junky, noisy AC line power, break it down to straight DC, and rebuild clean AC, thus consigning sags, surges, spikes, and all noise to oblivion. To do this they are constantly on-line; they do not have high-speed switching circuits like standby type UPS. This is why they have fan cooling and the fans run all the time the unit is through-putting power.

The fans are the downside because they are fans that mean business and they are way too loud for the listening room. I installed my 3 kva unit near the breaker box (dedicated 20 amp circuit) and ran a dedicated 12-2 w/g line to the amp stack in the living room.  I was remodeling at the time.

In event of power outage, you will have enough run time to attend to an orderly shutdown. If you want to jam to your tunes through an outage, a generator is a better option than add-on battery capacity ('cause you can also keep your beer and wine cold). The Emersons will accept modified waveform generator power and rebuild sweet 120V 60 Hz with no objections. The UPS in-built runtime will hold up the load through the generator's startup (generator/transfer switch systems have a prescribed lagtime after utility drop-out).

What you install downstream in the way of power conditioning has mostly to do with noise and surge that happens on the output side of the UPS. It is recommended that good surge protection be provided liberally wherever stuff is plugged in, and EMI/RFI filtration is good too to quell system internal contamination. More sophisticated is likely better than get-by, so if you like the idea of putting in spendy power-line conditioning, good on ya. I have a MonsterPower multi-stage TVSS/Line Filter in the rack, and everything goes back to it. That's all good as far as it goes, but the real power cleanup is happening in the UPS. Make sure your service panel has a nice big TVSS on it, and if your power company offers it, get one on the meter.

If you're looking for premier power conditioning this is it. It is not as expensive as Power Plant and the others (not counting what the electrician charges if you need one). But they don't have batteries and can't protect you from total drop-outs.

That's it. Good listening.

Speedskater

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 2672
  • Kevin
Some power hungry hi-fi components can make using a UPS problematic.
Some situations where a UPS might be used:
a] Components that go thru a long recycle, even with momentary power outages.
b] Components that make nasty shut-down noises even with momentary power outages.
c] Locations that have flakey AC power.

paulg

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 14
Add up all the watts RMS ratings of your power amps (consider future upgrades here), triple or quadruple that number. Look up available kva ratings of Liebert on-line double conversion UPS. Select the kva rating that exceeds this number. Make it any size bigger you're willing to pay for. That UPS will hold up your load flat-out-hard-drive-crank-it-to-eleven-forever without breaking a sweat. It's a head-room kind of scenario. Those kilovolt-amps are a well of power reserve the amps draw on. Size the UPS rating such that it cannot be exceeded when your amps go into clipping all at the same time! And a true on-line UPS is not just a well, but it's a black hole of all forms of AC line disturbance. At the output of one of these big guys it's flawless on-spec pure AC power.

Do not confuse the true on-line double conversion UPS with even the best line-interactive type UPS. These are not at all the same kind of machine. Their only resemblance to one another is that they are both called UPS. Nothing but a double conversion UPS will condition power in the way we mean for it to in the audiophile world. This is what power conditioners described as "regenerators" do. They make DC, then rebuild AC. It's the final word in eliminating junky power. But this type of UPS also includes a battery for conveniences that are all too obvious.

Whose AC isn't flakey? Some utility outfits are better than others and have more modern switchgear and updated line stations, etc, etc. That's reassuring, of course, if your utility outfit is one of these. But, when did you get a written guarantee from your power company that they will never deliver the next big surge that exceeds the rating of your existing TVSS? Is your power company aware that the spikey noise and sags that can and do appear on their lines without warning will absolutely screw up your treble definition, and everything else that matters. It is in the nature of the beast that you are a potential victim of phenomena to the extent that you are willing to risk exposure to those phenomena. That is an incontrovertible axiom; we shoulda learnt it from our moms and dads when we were, like, three. We all live with that regardless of how well prepared we are, or believe we are. There is no rational-empirical basis for judging whether any utility power product is or isn't flakey at any point in time or space.

Power conditioning is not just about helping your stereo sound better. It is first and foremost an exercise in risk management.

toocool4

While i was at the Munich High End show this year, i saw power units that did the same as the UPS i use. The company is https://stromtank.com/
They use batteries as well, the price for the small unit is $20000 makes my Emerson Liebert GXT4 look cheap. The big SromTank is $40000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=x53Trd34_Cc