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Battery backup copes with musical transients

On my street the power goes out around once a month. The average outage is only about half an hour, but knowing the power could go out at any time interferes with my concentration. So I installed a battery backup to supply power when the power goes out. It also supplies power every afternoon when the electricity rate is highest. But would the battery be able to keep up with musical transients? Batteries generate electricity from a chemical reaction which could be slow at the critical moment. There's nothing like having the power company's big honking generator at the other end of your power cord to supply the extra current needed when the music hits a peak. Happy to report the music sounds as good on battery as when it's getting power from the grid.

The battery powers the whole house including air conditioning even when temps hit triple digits. By chance, the power went out for three hours not long after the battery was installed. It was worth it just for that. Now I relax and enjoy the music knowing my listening session can never again be interrupted by an outage.
chowkwan
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,175 posts
 
Batteries are essentially huge capacitors. The capacitors in even the biggest amp will run out of juice long before a large bank of batteries will.
Of course, the more current you use the faster the batteries will run down.

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chowkwan OP
148 posts
 
You're absolutely correct about the inverter. The battery takes AC so I'm guessing the inverter is built in. The advantage of an AC battery is that it will work with any solar panel (after inversion). You know I didn't ask how long the battery will last and they don't mention it in the user manual.

You're also correct that 20K is a mouthful. But there are components that cost more than that. Did I mention that it's really nice to be free from worrying about outages?


millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
No such thing as an AC battery. What you have is some sort of power storage unit with its own built-in charger that converts AC to DC to charge the battery, and inverter that converts DC to AC to power your house. All this converting is highly ironic considering the main job of the power supply inside every component is to convert AC to DC. All our components run on DC.  

You will get a lot more sound quality when this thing is disconnected from the grid. Then if you were able to regulate the DC and turn it into a DC power supply for each component, bypassing the components power supply stage, that would be another big bump in performance. 

Sounds like a lot, but we are after all talking about someone who just dropped twenty large on a battery, and nonchalant about the same on an amp, so what's the holdup?
chowkwan OP
148 posts
 
Enphase Energy makes an AC battery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enphase_Energy

Millercarbon, you seem to know it all, tell me where do you get off telling other people what to do?
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