Best power conditioner for studio rack?

[PDupre]

What are you guys using in you PT racks?

Thanks

Peter

[David Fisher]

There are several good conditioners available by Monster and Furman, but expect it to cost alot more than a power strip!

The Monster unit goes for about 300 dollars I think, and Furman has a power conditioner/balanced power solution that retails somewhere around a grand I think.

[PDupre]

Well when you consider that what's in the rack is worth about $20K, $300 doesn't seem expensive.

Peter

[Lee Blaske]

Seriously, skip the power conditioner strip and go with a high quality UPS from one of the major manufacturers like APC. Buy a size that will comfortably handle your gear with room to spare (the only caveat is that the larger ones have fans, and aren't silent).

In addition to power protection (EMI/RFI, spike, over-voltage, under-voltage), a good UPS will get you over power drop outs, giving you time to close a session safely. Your system will also be more stable, because some quick power dropouts that are hardly noticeable can cause computer freezes. The type of power failure where the power goes on and off rapidly for a short time before failing is often the most damaging to equipment. A UPS can cope with that problem, whereas a power conditioner strip cannot.

On my system, I'm using the APC Smart-UPS 1400.

If you need balanced power, that would go after the UPS. Chances are good, however, that if your studio wiring is good, balanced power is not necessary.

Lee Blaske

[tnie]

APC over priced and marketed.......Try Sola for over all conditioning........... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[tvent]

Whatever your choice of UPS, do your best to get one that is a true "on-line" UPS. That does NOT mean that it plugs into the internet [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] , what it does mean is that the power is actually routed THROUGH the battery the entire time. This way you get the benefits of the extra filtering that a battery naturally provides and you don't have to worry about the very nasty spikes that occur when a non-on-line UPS "switches" over to the battery.
These type are usually much more expensive, but that is what you need if you want the UPS to take care of your power conditioning needs too. Check out the "Smart-UPS" line from APC. They have a model 1500 that has a pure sine-wave output that goes for around $700. That model(it looks like it replaced my favorite model, the 1400) has probably the best run-time you will find and still be able to plug it into a regular electrical outlet. Beware of the cheaper models and manufacturers that use stepped approximations equivalent to a sine wave output. If you are one of those folks on here who is worried about clocking your protools system and quality of converters, you are wasting your time by cutting corners on power regulation or UPSs.

[PDupre]

Thanks everyone. A UPS sounds like the way to go. The wiring in the studio is ok but because we are along the coast, we get a lot of dips in power level and more than our fair share of brown/black outs. Can you put the UPS in an ISO-Box or will it get too hot?

Peter

[tenkproductions]

Buy the Cyber Power AV1500 it's a beast and it comes with rack ears.$300.00 at Best Buy

http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/1500avr.htm

Phil
www.tenkproductions.com [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Lee Blaske]

Can you put the UPS in an ISO-Box or will it get too hot?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The higher temperatures would most likely result in shorter battery life, and replacement batteries aren't cheap.

As far as prices on APC units go, check out places like www.pcnation.com. You can save a significant amount of money over the prices in the more popular catalogs and certainly do much better than the major chains.

Lee Blaske