Off the Grid Listening-HELP!


In the next year, I am going to have to move my dedicated listening room to being off-the-grid. I would love to hear from anybody with experience in this area.I am just in the beginnings of doing research, but if anyone can accelerate this process I would appreciate it. I would need to power my turntable, a phono pre, tube pre amp, tube mono blocks and a couple of class D sub amps. I know that I need a pure sine wave inverter (how big, what brand?) and a couple of deep cycle batteries. Is there any easy way to calculate the size of the inverter and batteries needed? 12 or 24 volt system? Would something like a PS Audio regenerator be helpful too? This would only best used about 8 hours per week in four hour sessions. Thank you!

mterle

Showing 2 responses by astolfor

I would by a Honda generator, plug a 2000-3000VA Pure Sine UPS and plug your equipment to the UPS.

Here is what I posted on a similar thread with regards to PS Audio power plants and a UPS.

 

All what I say is my experience, so I do not say if a product is better or not. 😊

In my home in the USA, the entire house was rewired when Covid-19 started because I needed very clean power for my instruments. So half of the house is in one panel the other in another. From the “lab” panel I have 2 5000va Apc and a 3000va connected, from the ups the 3000 and one 5000va go to the “lab” the other 5000 goes to the living-audio-room.

What comes out of the ups is in the 0.2thd and 119-120v, but not true/perfect sine but very very close despite the claim. So I tried an Isotek to lower the noise, which marginally did until the outlets rusted. My house is also temperature and humidity controlled, because for the work I do I need very stable environment to make sure that I have as little variation in my projects, so the Isotek rusted because cheap component in the plugs.

Then, I bought a PS15, and lowered the noise and gave me a very close, closer than the APC, sine wave, and 0.1thd. Did the sound benefited from the PS15? Yes but not enough, then I bought a p20 because I read that they are better.

in my system the P15 and P20 sound identical, maybe because my system does not load them much.

I called PS Audio and asked them if me running the PS from my 5000va Apc was a problem, they said no, but in the documentation it say do not do it. So I ran a 20Amp outlet and plugged the PS20 to it and there was absolutely no difference, in the output power metrics, the P20 was working harder but not sound difference.

the panel had ~1.9thd and the voltage fluctuation was around 6-7V, and rather jagged sine wave.

Are the PS worth it? It all depends if they make a difference in your system and you can hear it.

If you are in a budget, put a 2000-3000va UPS, there are many good brands, then see if you like the improvements, if you do then you can try the PS.

 

What I failed to mention, here is that I also have 2xHonda EM6500SX running as one and in the case of power failure on the house all I need is to start the generators and the bypass switch will go the generators as source.

Surprisingly enough, the power coming out of the UPSs is exactly the same as when they are connect to the mains.

BTW all this setup was for my instruments I use for work, not for music. I just add the audio system to the load.

 

Sorry for grammar and spelling errors, English is la late acquired language. 

@jbs the generators are in little generator house, with lots of insulation, have the mufflers vented in the opposite direction of the house. I can't hear them at all.