Power Supply Systems - Are they really worth it?

[Dewadabadewya]

I've been told by a slick talking audio sales person that I must get one of the power supply systems for my hometheater setup. Do they really work to improve video appearance and sound clarity or are they just good at keeping the local electric company's spike and brown outs from frying my equipment?

[Guest " "]

The degree in which they work has a lot to do with the existing quality of your power.

If you have poor quality power, you will see a difference.

If you have prime power, you will not.

I have poor quality power. I use seperate balanced power supply, voltage regulator, line filter device on a 60 amp dedicated bx run.

[Islander]

First, dewa..., I'll mention that I envy speakerfritz's electrical setup. Mine's much more basic.

Now to your question. You definitely want some sort of surge protection to protect your equipment, and of course one would think its cost should bear some relation to the cost of the equipment it's protecting. Filtering is desirable for two reasons: noise coming through your AC power line, and noise originating from components in your system, particularly digital devices like CD and DVD players.

With my system, I was able to hear noise during FM reception while a disc was loading in the DVD/CD player (a Yamaha DVD-S550). Upgrading to an FM antenna with a shielded cable suppressed that, however.

I also noticed some noise on FM when I first plugged in my Paradigm PW-2100 sub with its Class D (digital?) amp. Plugging it into a nearby receptacle that's on a different circuit cured that.

I was also dubious about the hype around home theater power bars, so I went with a Tripp-Lite Isobar Ultra 8 commercial grade surge protector with 4 filter banks. The Ultra 4 has 2 filters and the Ultra 6 has 3. The Ultra 8 lets me plug in the TV, VCR, DVD player and receiver into independently filtered outlets so they don't interfere with each other.

The Tripp-Lite unit is metal-bodied and not that expensive, and I noticed differences with it in the system. FM reception is a little quieter, and blacks seem a little blacker on the TV. Add in peace of mind from surge protection, and $89usd seems like a bargain.

Pat on the Island

[DrWho]

Apart from the basic protection stuff, most of the power filtering

stuff is gimmicky. I won't say that it doesn't work, but there are far

more important issues to be considering. Why worry about a +- 0.1dB

ripple when you've got +-12dB happening from crappy room acoustics? or

+-3dB from the speakers? Heck, with the right ripple you might even be

improving the situation!

If power filtering really made a huge difference, don't you think the

high-end manufacturers would already be incorporating it into the power

supply

of the device? A high-end manufacturer that doesn't take it into

account is like an offroad vehicle with racing slicks in the snow -

everyone knows the "power grid is crappy" so they're going to put tires

on the amp that are built for handling the terrain.

Granted, room acoustics can be a challenging topic and much more

difficult to make aesthetically acceptable, but the price is cheaper

and the return is arguably the best improvement you can make (save the

speakers themselves).

I would go to your slick talking audio sales guy and ask him what he

feels is the bottleneck of your setup and see what he tells you.

Btw, welcome to the forum.

[TheEAR]

I've been told by a slick talking audio sales person that I must get one of the power supply systems for my hometheater setup. Do they really work to improve video appearance and sound clarity or are they just good at keeping the local electric company's spike and brown outs from frying my equipment?

Hmmm the sales person is just trying to sell and make a very good buck.

These AC conditioning units do work,and do help from almost ZERO to a good bit,depending on the gear used and the problems you may have.

Are they worth the price,yes if you have a fully treated room(acoustics),your system is complete(the way you want)and you want to extract the last drop of transparency. Again you have to ask for a full refund if it does not improve audibly the performance,who needs voodoo magic audio boxes?

On most systems people have these ,the AC "cleaners" are a major waste,and money is better invested into a quality source and amp.Also the too often forgotten room acoustics,you should work to improve acoustics,reduce nasty reflective surfaces and invest in damping(all this knowing what to damp and where,it is easy to overdamp a room and make it too dead.Some minor reverb is needed.We live in the real world after all).

I saw people with pathetic gear and miserable room acoustics have Monster and APC AC conditionners! Funny to say the least,and sad.

If you have to try one,please do.Just make sure you can get all your money back if it does not improve the sound. Use the ears not the placebo effect.

[damonrpayne]

My father worked on MRIs and such, and he said there was no question that some devices could pollute the power on other sensitive devices on the same circuit, but this gets back to the notion of doing something only if there's a problem.

I just had two new circuits ran to my gear closet for audio stuff, I'll be plugging plain ole surge protectors into that and not thinking about it again.