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What is everyone using for SURGE PROTECTION?

This is one of those things that makes system design so much fun!

It is impossible to know for certain what your refrigerator is doing to your loudspeakers, but there are a handful of easy fixes...

1) Separate your refrigerator power from your studio power. I live in the USA, so for us it is a simple matter of moving a breaker to the other leg, I have no idea how one does this in the UK, but an electrician ought to be able to help you out.

Believe it or not, that might be all you need.

2) If it isn't, I'd be inclined to recommend a line interactive UPS and a series mode surge suppressor, and I might start with the UPS alone.

Keep in mind that's sight unseen, so my advice is worth less than you paid for it<G>!
 
Bill, sorry to impose, but I wonder if you could advise on these two I'm thinking of getting. The first doesn't do sine wave, but rather 'simulated sine wave' I believe, but says it's 'next generation' presumably the newer model. The second does do sine wave, and I think I'd rather get sine wave. Just wondering if that second, older model is missing any newer technologies I should have, and so I'd get the first and screw the sine wave?

Again, sorry to impose, I understand if you don't have the time to hold my hand while I go shopping!! Thank you!!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBK3QK/ref ... RSPF&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00429N19W/ref ... QI83&psc=1







wst3 @ Sat Apr 25 said:
Since I'm not in your studio I can't answer that definitively.

When I think of line interactive I think of a UPS that uses a transformer or autoformer to connect power to the load, and then switches to battery only when the input line drops out.

When I think of an on-line UPS I think of a device that charges the batteries from the line, but uses the batteries to power an inverter that then connects to the load.

Both of these can provide a sine wave output, conversely, both can generate quite a bit of noise.

The big differences are:
- a line interactive UPS will only generate noise when it is in battery mode.
- there may be a small glitch/spike when a line interactive UPS switches to the batteries. I think this is rare these days.

Once again let me repeat myself (was that redundant?)... a UPS provides power to your equipment when there is not power at the outlet. That is really the purpose of a UPS. It might provide some filtering, and it will probably also provide some regulation. When the batteries are in line it also provides some surge/spike protection. But what protects it?

Since you have no noise problems you don't need a lot of filtering or isolation. And if you don't need surge protection then a line interactive UPS will work for you. If you need surge protection consider putting a series mode device in front of the UPS, at which point you can use line interactive with no real drawback really. If you plan to use your system while on UPS power then you still want a sine wave output. (although arguably that has become a marketing term, what you really want is filtering on the output<G>!)
Click to expand...
 
I took a quick look, and from that I can't really tell, so I will take a closer look later this evening. If I don't feel free to remind me<G>!
 
anyone used something like this?
Amazon product ASIN B01FWAZEIU
i recently move and there are short random power outages so i just want to have a few minutes to turn things off and on. i have 2 computers, speakers, interface, octopre, axefx2, 5 hardware synths, and all connected to a long power strip w about 25 outlets all connected to a main wall outlet. its been working fine for a lt of years. its just those pesty power outages and afraid it will screw up my focal speakers.

So i dont think i need anythign fancy. just enough power to be able to hold power to shut things off. but i could be missing some info.

thanks.
 
I use a CyberPower UPS which has both power surge protection and battery backup to give you time to power down. You can even program it to automatically power down your computer in the event of a total power cut. I sometimes get random brownouts in my area and it has worked perfectly.
 
From working in the Enterprise Server and storage business for many years, backup power is one of those things that was common, obviously, and APC was usually the default choice because of their name and presence in that market. Of course I'm referring to some fairly expensive rack type back up UPS solutions that wouldn't probably be cost effective to most of us. What I've also found is that there are some great alternatives to APC that give you more bang for your buck because they are all trying to compete against that big brand name. On the other hand most of these companies focus their energy on business and enterprise so they don't have a lot of lower cost solutions for the prosumer market like APC does but still I would consider many alternatives to APC for the reason I described.

Having said that, I came across a company online that looks to have a really cool approach to surge that is different than the rest and it seems to be a very noise free solution and I would have thought by now they would have become popular in the studios for this reason but I don't seem to hear about them from anyone in the audio and production world. Still worth checking out though https://zerosurge.com/
 
APC rack-mount SmartUPS. Heavy as hell, but has always worked. I just need to order new batteries every 5-6 years. I have a Furman AR-15 on some of the less- crucial things (outboard gear, synths, etc)
 
pderbidge said:
Having said that, I came across a company online that looks to have a really cool approach to surge that is different than the rest and it seems to be a very noise free solution and I would have thought by now they would have become popular in the studios for this reason but I don't seem to hear about them from anyone in the audio and production world. Still worth checking out though https://zerosurge.com/
Click to expand...

After trying 3 different surge protectors, this is what I had to end up getting. Everything else made my system sound awful compared to plugging in directly to the wall. There are much more expensive options ($1000+) which I know work well but I think the ZeroSurge products are the cheapest I'd use.
 
Nick Batzdorf said:
That's bizarre.

What do you attribute that to?
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I'm not sure if it has to do with the surge protection side of things or whatever filtering is built into normal power bars and the typical Furman type 1U units. I think it's something to do with limiting the current peaks. I know that impedance is also very important with these things (a lot of more expensive units have very large metal bus bars instead of wires connecting the various outlets to lower impedance).

I avoid any sort of power filtering for this reason and use a different product which works in parallel introducing low frequency noise into the power line acting somewhat similar to dither. I should try to find a filter that's actually "transparent" because I've had some noise issues in my system recently. I tried swapping out a digital format converter with a couple of other ones which just use generic cheap power adapters and then I started getting noise on one of my speakers. The frequency of the noise would change depending on which power supply I used. I know that it's something in the power because that side of my studio is galvanically separated. It's only connected by an optical cable and power which is fed from the rest of my system.
 
It sounds like you'd be a good candidate for a 1:1 isolation transformer in front of your suspect power supplies.

Edit: (I mean to separate the cheap supplies so they don't spew crap into your power.)
 
My old APC Back UPS Pro still works fine with a Furman PL-PRO DMC. If power goes out it remains on w/o interruption. Then there's a 25,000w generator that starts after 1 minute if there's an outage plus surge protection in the basement tied into the mains for the entire house. Lightning rods on the roof.
No noise or problems
 
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pderbidge said:
Having said that, I came across a company online that looks to have a really cool approach to surge that is different than the rest and it seems to be a very noise free solution and I would have thought by now they would have become popular in the studios for this reason but I don't seem to hear about them from anyone in the audio and production world. Still worth checking out though https://zerosurge.com/
Click to expand...

Nothing new here, it is an application of series mode suppression, introduced by SurgeX many years ago. The patent ran out a recently and Middle Atlantic has adopted the approach as well.

Anyone asks I tell them that series mode suppression, from Middle Atlantic, SurgeX or anyone else is the only way to go. Both SurgeX and Middle Atlantic have excellent white papers on the topic on their sites.
 
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