Home Tweakers' Asylum

Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ.

Getting better power to our stereo's

So I'm looking for some opinions on the various available options for improving the quality of electricity we feed our equipment. I have looked at the online battery back up UPS's made for computers, and now a days with the true sinewave output, low distortion, and high VA ratings, I'm wondering why we as audiophiles haven't adopted these. Before when they didn't have true sineways, it was obvious, but now they do. Before when the distortion was as high as 20%, I understood, it was a step back, but now with distortion as low as 1-2%, again, That is at least better than out of the wall. I have talked with multiple UPS manufacturers and they have told me that the best computer ones don't match the tight specs of the PS Audio ones, but that they are close enough that for the cost savings, we might still see a benefit over nothing at all. 2% is still lower distortion than what comes straight from most walls, even if it isn't in the .1% range you see from the PS Audio stuff.

There are also Lab supplies and supplies for CNC machines and such which offer distortion in the .5% range, with voltage regulation, and such. These use isolation transformers, LC filters, etc to clean up, rather than true regeneration, but the end result is similar, if not better. New cost is higher than any audiophile stuff, but used they can be had pretty cheap, other than shipping. Elgar is one brand that makes the good Lab supplies worth using. I'm wondering if anyone has any opinions on these units, or if anyone has done any testing to confirm my suspicion that these would be good audiophile tweeks. Oh yes, Triplite seems to make the cheapest Online UPS, which is the essential part. I can't find any rated the same from other companies for so little money.

Also, I bet some improvements could be had with all of these if the products were improved with better grade AC caps, or adding further filtration. For instance you could remove the stock LC filter and replace it with one that has a lower corner frequency, or simply replace the parts with modern better parts, such as the Elgar case.


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Topic - Getting better power to our stereo's - Mpoes 15:25:30 03/05/07 (8)


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