Power supply

[jmorrisonbc]

I just filled a surge protected power bar with my computer system. My guitar amp and keyboard occupy another outlet in the room.

I understand the concept of amperage, and I'll be careful not to overload any outlet, but I'm concerned that I'm going to create humming by plugging my monitors (self-amplified) into the wrong power strip or outlet.

Should I purchase some sort of power unit for the rack and run my audio gear out of that?

Advice or rule of thumb on power?

Thanks

Johnny

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Well, using a bunch of different outlets doesn't necessarily help when they're all on the same circuit.

Do you hear a hum? If not, you don't have a hum. How's that for an awesome technical answer?

If there is no obvious noise that you can trace to power, the only thing I'd worry about in terms of bad power would be your A/D/A converters and analog equipment (mic preamps, etc), as their performace can suffer due to dirty power. It's probably not a huge concern in the average home studio, but if you're worried about it you can pick up a line conditioner (something by furman probably).

A line conditioner takes dirty power in and supplies "clean" (RFI/EMI filtered) power out. Don't confuse this with a UPS. A UPS can protect against spikes and sags, but that's about all it does. Only the very expensive UPS's will have real line conditioning built in....line conditioners alone are expensive. And surge protectors do absolutely nothing other than protect your equipment from major spikes...and most of them don't even do that well.

Slackmaster 2000