Power Conditioning for the small home studio, 20 amps

[Sundown]

Hey all,

 

All of my prior home studios have been bedrooms (1940’s to 1960’s builds), and like many older homes, three or four breakers were powering most of the house. The original builders just daisy-chained wire from room to room. No surprise, I was getting some interference and noise that could be picked up by my audio interface and/or electronic instruments.

 

Now I’m finishing up my first ‘purpose built’ basement home studio, and I dedicated four 20-amp breakers for audio-only. They use 10-gauge solid wire and premium Hubbell hospital-grade receptacles, and all of the ground wires for those circuits are tied to a separate, dedicated ground bar, which is then patched into the main ground. I’m not an electrician, so this is my best description of the setup. It should be an improvement over anything I’ve had before.

 

I haven’t had a chance to test the improvement, but I’ll still need surge suppression/protection for my gear. I’d love to get a Furman Voltage regulator, but you can’t touch a 20-amp unit for less than two-grand. Even a 15-amp unit will run over $1,000 in many cases.

 

Truth be told, I don’t think I need 20 amps to power a couple of keyboards, my compact mixer, a few rack units, and my DAW CPU (it runs on 15 amps now), but it seems like a waste that I have 20 amps on tap and a 15A limitation on the power conditioner. I could get a Furman PLC-PRO DMC (20-amps) with a volt display, but it doesn’t regulate voltage.

 

The logical, practical thing for me to do would be to see how clean the power is with nothing, and then opt for whatever is needed for the next level of quiet. But the impulse in me wants to do something proactively.

 

I’ve looked at Furman, Tripp-Lite, Black Lion, and Southwire, and I’m looking for some semi-affordable 20A protection in the bang-for-the-buck category. 

 

Any suggestions?

 

Todd

 

 

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

I have a Furman power conditioner, it's a rack mount unit. I don't remember the model but used on eBay it was under $200 and has been solid. 

9 grounded AC outlets, 8 in back and one on the front (handy).

 

I live in a multi unit condo, I had my studio in the living room and the next door neighbor must have gotten some huge entertainment station because suddenly every thing near the shared wall was noisy. The power conditioner made a big difference, then I moved the studio to one of the bedrooms and now everything is quiet. 

20 amps is way more than a studio should need, unless you are running a rack full of huge power amps or some other crazy stuffs. 

[RABid]

My goal was to get a good UPS for my DAW. When I first moved to my rural home blinking lights were a big problem. While the power company seems to have cleaned up the problem caused by tree limbs blowing against lines, storms with lightening frequently cause glitches in the power. 

[Sundown]

Great insights guys … This is the kind of feedback I needed. I especially like RMC’s input about CPUs vs. non-CPUs. I can now focus my efforts on a decent 15A power conditioner for my primary gear. I’ll look for smaller units for the other outlets that feed audio gear (my Kawai DP, my studio monitors, etc). 

 

When I laid-out the electrical, I went with 20 amps because it wasn’t really a significant cost penalty. The 10/2 solid wire cost me some dough (and many would say that’s totally overkill), but I got sucked into that audiophile forum thing. It’s amazing how far some folks will go with outlets, wiring, etc. You could drop $250 or more on a single receptacle. I tried to do a few sensible things without going off the deep end. 

 

Thanks again - Todd

[dboomer]

Do you have a particular problem you are trying to solve?  Otherwise you are probably just throwing away money.  In my experience, using power conditioners that cost less than $1K are generally useless and really only show improvements to video gear and not audio gear.

 

Most all gear produced in the last 10-15 years uses switch mode power supplies.  This style supply is pretty much self regulating and is susceptible to problems when connected to power conditioners.  You may be creating a problem you don’t currently have.  YMMV. 

[Anderton]

I would prioritize an uninterruptible power supply with enough juice to handle your computer and a monitor. Sometimes there are power interruptions, or brownouts, and the UPS will allow you to shut down your computer elegantly instead of subjecting it to power cycles and spikes as the AC power burps and farts.  

 

As to conditioners, I once reviewed an Equi=Tech power conditioner. I suspected it was going to be a snake oil thing along the lines of designer speaker cables, but was surprised to measure the noise floor of mixers was a few dB less with the balanced power. 

[KuruPrionz]

51 minutes ago, Anderton said:

I would prioritize an uninterruptible power supply with enough juice to handle your computer and a monitor. Sometimes there are power interruptions, or brownouts, and the UPS will allow you to shut down your computer elegantly instead of subjecting it to power cycles and spikes as the AC power burps and farts.  

 

As to conditioners, I once reviewed an Equi=Tech power conditioner. I suspected it was going to be a snake oil thing along the lines of designer speaker cables, but was surprised to measure the noise floor of mixers was a few dB less with the balanced power. 

I noticed an audible improvement in noise reduction using the Furman, inexpensive though it was (used at $175 + shipping was less than half of retail). 

I use EMG active pickups on my guitars and bass and they are very low noise. Everything was fine and then one day EMG equipped guitar was noisy when plugged into my studio gear. 

I tried it into an amp in the far end of the condo, no noise there. I got the Furman, plugged it into the same socket that my power strip was plugged into, plugged the power strip into the Furman and the noise from the same guitar went WAY down. Then I moved the whole rig into a bedroom, away from the shared wall and just plugged the studio gear into the Furman. Not noisy any more. So yeah, "snake oil" or not, adding one piece of gear - an inexpensive power conditioner - did notably reduce noise in my system. 

 

FWIW, I've been in the next door unit and the shared wall is in the living room and exactly the place one might want to put an entertainment center. That and the sounds that were coming through the wall indicated to me that the new resident there had set up their stuff just on the other side of the wall. That's the only variable that I cannot fully account for but the clues were there. 

[Delaware Dave]

My studio doubles as band practice space.  I have the following electrical components in my basement:

 

Peavey CS800 (drives the passive main vocal speakers)

Peavey CS400 (used by the bass player to drive a Hartke Bass cabinet)

QSC USA400 (drives the passive vocal monitors)

8 channel mixers (2) One for the mains and monitors, one used by the bass player as a preamp into the CS400.

Dual channel 15 Band EQ

Effects units (compressors, reverb, etc.)

Hammond L100P

Motion Sound Leslie

Gem Equinox keyboards (2)

Peavey Butcher 120 watt tube amp

Baldwin Custom guitar amplifier (100 watt solid state for acoustic guitar)

Fender Deluxe tube amp

Peavey KB300 (2) 

 

All of that equipment is used when we practice.  The power comes from a single source 15 amp circuit breaker.  Between the breaker and the above electronics is a Tripplite LC1200 voltage regulator which also does RF filtering (based on the spec of the Tripplite).  In 20 years never once blew the circuit breaker nor tripped the Tripplite.  I used the sound system above back in the day for shows at clubs.

 

You mentioned this:  ".. I dedicated four 20-amp breakers for audio-only..".    I'd say 80 amps for audio sounds like overkill.  Not sure what you are worried about.  If you still feel you need RF cleansing and voltage regulation look at the Tripplite LC1200.  I've been using one for close to 30 years and it keeps the voltage near the 117V mark at a fraction of the cost of a Furman unit.

 

Tripplite LC1200 (used) for sale

 

[Sundown]

On 11/14/2022 at 12:21 PM, dboomer said:

Do you have a particular problem you are trying to solve?  Otherwise you are probably just throwing away money.  In my experience, using power conditioners that cost less than $1K are generally useless and really only show improvements to video gear and not audio gear.

 

Most all gear produced in the last 10-15 years uses switch mode power supplies.  This style supply is pretty much self regulating and is susceptible to problems when connected to power conditioners.  You may be creating a problem you don’t currently have.  YMMV. 

 

Hi dboomer,

 

Thanks for the reply. In my old bedroom setup (which was a common circuit with many other rooms and devices), I could definitely pick up electrical interferences, so my goal based on that experience was to aim for the cleanest power I could get within reason. In all fairness I haven’t been able to test my new setup which relies on dedicated audio-only breakers, star grounding, etc. The sensible approach would be to test the new outlets ‘naked’, and then decide if anything further is needed. Construction is wrapping up soon so I’ll be able to test my gear near the holidays.

 

If I’m really specific and honest, I wrote/recorded a simple electric piano piece that uses my Roland XV-3080. I had to cut the crap out of certain frequencies to get the sound I wanted, and I had to boost the overall level a large amount (15-20 dB) to get to a listenable mastering level. In doing so it revealed a lot of noise, and while I think it might just be a noisy module or sample, some suggested it was electrical in nature. That probably triggered my journey for clean power. Believe me, I tried other EP sounds, but that specific Roland sound with the right deep cuts was the only one that made me smile.

 

I’m all about ‘bones’, so if I can build my home studio on clean power, I’m going to do what I can within affordability.

 

Todd

 

P.S. Here is my primary instrument list if it helps:

 

Roland D-20 (1988)

Kurzweil PC361 (2009)

Roland XV-3080 (2000)

Kawai MP11 (~2015)

 

 

 

 

[Sundown]

10 hours ago, Anderton said:

I would prioritize an uninterruptible power supply with enough juice to handle your computer and a monitor. Sometimes there are power interruptions, or brownouts, and the UPS will allow you to shut down your computer elegantly instead of subjecting it to power cycles and spikes as the AC power burps and farts. 

 

Hi Craig,

 

I get the value of a UPS for professionals who work 8-10 hours a day, but with two kids and a full-time job, I’m lucky to get 8-10 non-contiguous hours per week for this hobby. The likelihood of a brownout or blackout is there, but it’s not my primary concern.

 

The one benefit I could see from a UPS for my use case is that many units rely on isolation transformers to go from A/C to a DC battery and back to A/C, which could eliminate noise in the lines.

 

Todd

[Anderton]

50 minutes ago, Sundown said:

I get the value of a UPS for professionals who work 8-10 hours a day, but with two kids and a full-time job, I’m lucky to get 8-10 non-contiguous hours per week for this hobby. The likelihood of a brownout or blackout is there, but it’s not my primary concern.

 

A lot depends on where you live. If you have thunderstorms in the summer, you gotta have one. I've observed power fluctuations during recovery from some storm-induced blackouts here in Tennessee, and the voltage has gone up to 137 volts and back down to 100 volts in seconds. When power is turned back on after a power outage, nasty spikes and interruptions are common. Nearby lightning can also kill the SSDs in your computer, even without a direct hit. In fact if you have SSD drives, you need to be hyper-careful of voltage fluctuations.

 

Not to mention if you're updating firmware and the power goes out...

 

For $150 - $200 or so, it's cheap insurance against something that could ruin your day, to say the least. With power grids becoming increasingly unreliable, I do think prioritizing a UPS is essential, even you're just a hobbyist who wants to protect your gear from damage.

[dboomer]

18 hours ago, Sundown said:

If I’m really specific and honest, I wrote/recorded a simple electric piano piece that uses my Roland XV-3080. I had to cut the crap out of certain frequencies to get the sound I wanted, and I had to boost the overall level a large amount (15-20 dB) to get to a listenable mastering level. In doing so it revealed a lot of noise, and while I think it might just be a noisy module or sample, some suggested it was electrical in nature. 

 

If you had to boost 15-20dB you have a major gain structure issue and not interference in your ac lines.  Looks like you are gonna spend a lot of bucks correcting the wrong problem.  You need to improve your dynamic range and not boost your levels which automatically boosts your noise levels.

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, dboomer said:

If you had to boost 15-20dB you have a major gain structure issue and not interference in your ac lines.  Looks like you are gonna spend a lot of bucks correcting the wrong problem.  You need to improve your dynamic range and not boost your levels which automatically boosts your noise levels.

What he said...

[Sundown]

On 11/16/2022 at 5:28 PM, dboomer said:

If you had to boost 15-20dB you have a major gain structure issue and not interference in your ac lines.  Looks like you are gonna spend a lot of bucks correcting the wrong problem.  You need to improve your dynamic range and not boost your levels which automatically boosts your noise levels.

 

Hi dBoomer,

 

Normally I would agree with you, but to get the sound I wanted, I did some massive, massive cuts with the onboard Roland XV-3080 parametric EQ and it really sucked the overall gain out. I then had to dial some other frequencies out with Fabfilter post-recording. It might not have been 15-20 dB of overall boost, but it was a lot … Certainly more than 10 dB.

 

The most common answer to that track is “find a different sound”, but Boy, I’ve spent a lot of time looking for a substitute and something about that specific XV EP (coupled with the right cuts) just works.

 

Todd

[dboomer]

15 hours ago, Sundown said:

 

Hi dBoomer,

 

Normally I would agree with you, but to get the sound I wanted, I did some massive, massive cuts with the onboard Roland XV-3080 parametric EQ and it really sucked the overall gain out. I then had to dial some other frequencies out with Fabfilter post-recording. It might not have been 15-20 dB of overall boost, but it was a lot … Certainly more than 10 dB.

 

The most common answer to that track is “find a different sound”, but Boy, I’ve spent a lot of time looking for a substitute and something about that specific XV EP (coupled with the right cuts) just works.

 

Todd

OK, but how is treating your electric service gonna fix your noisy synth problem?

[KuruPrionz]

18 hours ago, Sundown said:

 

Hi dBoomer,

 

Normally I would agree with you, but to get the sound I wanted, I did some massive, massive cuts with the onboard Roland XV-3080 parametric EQ and it really sucked the overall gain out. I then had to dial some other frequencies out with Fabfilter post-recording. It might not have been 15-20 dB of overall boost, but it was a lot … Certainly more than 10 dB.

 

The most common answer to that track is “find a different sound”, but Boy, I’ve spent a lot of time looking for a substitute and something about that specific XV EP (coupled with the right cuts) just works.

 

Todd

Instead of only cutting, try boosting the frequencies that you ended up with, in other words do both subtractive EQ and additive EQ. 

Seems like it's worth a try at least. 😇

[Sundown]

On 11/15/2022 at 11:29 PM, Anderton said:

 

For $150 - $200 or so, it's cheap insurance against something that could ruin your day, to say the least. With power grids becoming increasingly unreliable, I do think prioritizing a UPS is essential, even you're just a hobbyist who wants to protect your gear from damage.

 

Hi Craig,

 

Any brands or models that you recommend looking at? Maybe APC? Tripp Lite?

 

Have you noticed any mechanical noise (fans, etc.) when running a UPS off normal power (i.e. not off the battery)?

 

Thanks again.

 

Todd

[Sundown]

On 11/20/2022 at 5:32 PM, KuruPrionz said:

Instead of only cutting, try boosting the frequencies that you ended up with, in other words do both subtractive EQ and additive EQ. 

Seems like it's worth a try at least. 😇

 

Good suggestion.

[Sundown]

On 11/20/2022 at 2:47 PM, dboomer said:

OK, but how is treating your electric service gonna fix your noisy synth problem?

 

Hi dboomer. At the time this all went down, many in forums were saying that I should be able to boost that much without artifacts, and that surely I had power issues or other interferences. As a professional mechanical engineer, I struggle with that (I’m not a pro audio engineer). If you boost something enough, whatever noise floor is there will come up. You can’t just boost level indefinitely without consequences. That’s impossible.

 

So you’re correct, if the sound is fundamentally noisy, addressing power won’t fix it. But I can ensure that I have the cleanest power possible, to get the best S/N at all times.

 

Todd

[Anderton]

On 11/21/2022 at 10:02 PM, Sundown said:

Any brands or models that you recommend looking at? Maybe APC? Tripp Lite?

 

Have you noticed any mechanical noise (fans, etc.) when running a UPS off normal power (i.e. not off the battery)?

 

Several years ago, I bought a UPS from Best Buy that could handle my power needs at the time. I have to replace the batteries every couple years, but I can get them from Batteries + Bulbs. The UPS is no longer available and probably hasn't been for a while, but hey, it still works and I can still get replacement batteries, so I've felt no need to replace it.

 

Mostly you just want something that has enough power for your computer, monitor, and any external hard drives that you use. You also want a sine wave output. Anything beyond that, I wouldn't really know what to recommend.

 

As to your second question, when it runs off normal power, it just shuts up and sits in the background

[dboomer]

On 11/22/2022 at 5:50 AM, Sundown said:

 

If you boost something enough, whatever noise floor is there will come up. You can’t just boost level indefinitely without consequences. 

 

The answer is a bit tricky.  It depends where in the circuit you are when boosting as to how much the noise floor will increase.  It is all about gain structure.  If you increase the signal as a whole then the noise floor comes up by your increased amount.  But with tone creating as with a synth is you “rescale” the forming signal with reference to gain structure there will be very little to no increase to the noise floor.

[Sundown]

On 11/23/2022 at 11:33 PM, Anderton said:

 

Mostly you just want something that has enough power for your computer, monitor, and any external hard drives that you use. You also want a sine wave output. Anything beyond that, I wouldn't really know what to recommend.

 

Thanks Craig. Very helpful. I just spent some time learning about pure sine wave vs. stepped sine wave output. Some of the pure units are pretty expensive, but APC sells the BR1500MS2 for about $280. CyberPower sells several units in the same price range and both offer pure sine wave output while on battery power.

 

Thanks again.

 

Todd 

[Sundown]

I got my UPS today. It’s as quiet as a dead mouse (at least when the A/C is available). 

 

I chose the APC BR1500MS2 and I got it for $199 over the weekend. It’s a 1500VA unit with a pure sine wave output.

 

I can’t wait to pair it up with my gear once my studio is finished.

 

Thanks again for all the tips.

 

Todd

 

 

[Anderton]

Hmmm...that looks suspiciously like a newer version of the one I have!