Is there any reasonably priced voltage regulators out there?

Rob Babcock · « **on:** 2 Dec 2004, 01:01 pm »

And if so, is it within the realm of sanity price-wise? I'm curious if there's anything similar to the PS Audio Four-Outlet P300 Power Plant for less than the $1500 they fetch. Is the TRIPPLITE LCR-2400 LINE CONDITIONER any good?

What I really want is to be able to give my DVD players pure power without surges, noise & voltage swings. Ideally I'd love a way to run them off of DC batteries, but that's probably not practical. So short of that I'd like some suggestions that would behave similarly to that. I see Monster makes a UPS specifically for HT use. If I recall it's got 8 outlets and costs about $500. Is this a total piece of crap that's wreck the sound or is it decent? Most of the things I've read indicate that normal computer UPS's are lousy sounding when used for audio. And at any rate, USP's usually don't kick in unless power is interrupted and probably won't regulate line voltage.

Any advice?

doug s. · « **Reply #1 on:** 2 Dec 2004, 04:58 pm »

Quote from: Rob Babcock

And if so, is it within the realm of sanity price-wise? I'm curious if there's anything similar to the PS Audio Four-Outlet P300 Power Plant for less than the $1500 they fetch. Is the TRIPPLITE LCR-2400 LINE CONDITIONER any good?

What I really want is to be able to give my DVD players pure power without surges, noise & voltage swings. Ideally I'd love a way to run them off of DC batteries, but that's probably not practical. So short of that I'd like some suggestions that would behave similar ...

the tripplite lcr-2400 will suck the dynamics outta amps, but i found no degradation when used on front-end stuff.

i also found that the vans evers "unlimiter" actually improved dynamics by yust a tiny smidge, when i hooked my amps up to it. i was thrilled, as i was only looking for protection w/o anything *bad* happening!

these aren't too spendy on the used market.

i love using isolation transformers for power conditioning - pennies on the dollar on ebay - but i don't think they offer any protection from surges, etc... they do lower noise floor considerably.

doug s.

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #2 on:** 2 Dec 2004, 08:01 pm »

Rob,

Some have found the CyberPower units to be effective for source components...available at Best Buy:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1051826239279&skuId=5444183&productCategoryId=cat08029&type=product

I bought the 1500VA model and tried it on my entire system. Didn't hack it and fan kicked in too much for comfort. It may, however, work wonderfully on your DVD/CDP front end only. Certainly, the price is right. I know of several folks that use these with good effect.

I ended up placing the unit on the video system and my picture quality improved rather nicely. Because I don't monitor audio quality there (not worth it as the system components, and sound, are too cheapo to monitor well), I can't tell.

One tweek to do to the unit, if you keep it, is to hack off the modular plug and graft on a nice, brass tipped industrial or hospital grade plug I've been told. I did this, too, but did not monitor the differences afterward.

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #3 on:** 2 Dec 2004, 08:04 pm »

Additionally....the reason I moved the CyberPower, ultimately, to the video system was I plunked down $1500 for a BPT-2. It was a darn good decision - everything improved - as others here have noted.

I didn't have to strain to hear the positive results with this one purchase...it was vast. But, for 1/10 the cost you might get reasonable improvement with the CyberPower.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #4 on:** 4 Dec 2004, 07:44 am »

Are the powercells/batteries "hot-swappable," ChairGuy? And roughly how many times can they be discharged and recharged? Just as a goof, I wonder if you could charge it up, plug your digital sources (for example) into it & unplug the USP from the wall. Of course you could, but if you used it as a battery all the time, do you think the unit would last very long?

If so, that would actually be pretty cool.

It costs slightly more, but the TRIPPLITE HT1500UPS HOME THEATRE UPS Backup is a bit larger.

nathanm · « **Reply #5 on:** 4 Dec 2004, 08:04 am »

One possible option:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/181290/

Ulas · « **Reply #6 on:** 4 Dec 2004, 04:00 pm »

Quote from: Rob Babcock

Are the powercells/batteries "hot-swappable," ChairGuy? And roughly how many times can they be discharged and recharged? Just as a goof, I wonder if you could charge it up, plug your digital sources (for example) into it & unplug the USP from the wall. Of course you could, but if you used it as a battery all the time, do you think the unit would last very long?

If so, that would actually be pretty cool. 8)

Powering AC equipment from a UPS running on its battery is not the same as powering low-voltage, DC equipment, such as a DAC, directly from batteries. To convert DC to AC, most UPSs use an inverter that outputs a stepped approximation of a sine wave.

While the switching power supply in a computer is insensitive to the AC wave shape, your audio components probably are very sensitive to the incoming power. True sine wave inverters are available but they are more expensive.

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #7 on:** 4 Dec 2004, 09:22 pm »

Quote from: Rob Babcock

Are the powercells/batteries "hot-swappable," ChairGuy? And roughly how many times can they be discharged and recharged? Just as a goof, I wonder if you could charge it up, plug your digital sources (for example) into it & unplug the USP from the wall. Of course you could, but if you used it as a battery all the time, do you think the unit would last very long?

If so, that would actually be pretty cool.

It costs slightly more, but the TRIPPLITE HT1500UPS HOME THEATRE UPS Backup is a bit larger.

Rob,

The two units I mentioned are NOT hot swappable...once the battery runs down, that's it for them. CyberPower makes a sensibly priced 1500VA unit for $249 or so that is hot swappable. The biggest problems with it is that it has a very loud fan.

Carlman bought one, and I think uses on his computer gear now.

The run time (unplugged from wall) is variable due to the draw on the batteries. I haven't tried it, but I doubt you'd get a lot of time on it to play tunes.

Ulas is right, using a sealed lead acid battery with a pure sine wave inverter is the purest way to go with AC gear....it has always been Chris Hoff's / BPT reference for his balanced power units. He told me (or maybe Underwoodwally, his online sales guy) until he got to his 3.5 Signature model, the SLA battery/sine wave inverted gear was superior. I have the BPT 2.0 with upgrades ($1500 smackers), never tried powering my gear with batteries so I haven't compared.

I forgot about that Furman unit that nathanm pointed out. Pretty good price point on it...not in the hideous zone of things

Karsten · « **Reply #8 on:** 4 Dec 2004, 09:23 pm »

Well, try the APC LE1200. It is pretty cheap (around 50 USD) and it seems to work fine for line level equipment.

Brg,
Karsten

epsilon · « **Reply #9 on:** 19 Jan 2005, 09:51 pm »

Newb questions here:

Are these (non-UPS) AVR products (APC, Tripplite) appropriate for connecting a digital reciever (such as the Panny XR50) to?

Are the Tripplites better than APC, at roughly twice the cost?

Gordy · « **Reply #10 on:** 20 Jan 2005, 03:35 am »

Hi Epsilon,

Here are the spec's... http://www.techforless.com/cgi-bin/tech4less/LE1200.html#specs

epsilon · « **Reply #11 on:** 20 Jan 2005, 08:49 am »

Thanks Gordy, that's a good price. The specs I've seen at the APC site but I stilll don't know whether this would help the Panny or how the APC compares to the Tripplites.