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Possibly Dumb Question re:Battery as a power supply

I have bought a new Clearaudio Performance DC Wood turntable.  I plan to drive to the dealer in Atlanta and pick it up next Wednesday.  I have seen the wall wart power supply which comes with the TT, and it is not a pretty sight.  Clearaudio sells an upgraded 12V battery and charger supply for "only" $1,200.00.  I don't wish to present myself as a parsimonious individual,  but $1,200.00 seems a bit steep to me.  I am wondering what problems would ensue if I bought a moderately sized (say 25 or 30 lbs.) , sealed, lead acid, 12V rechargeable battery; attached the proper wires to connect to the TT, and used it as a power supply.  When the battery runs down I could just take it to my workshop and use my electronic, automatic battery charger I use to recharge car, truck and tractor batteries to bring it back to full power.  As little current as the TT uses this shouldn't be too frequent a chore.  It is just a possibility, but if it is feasible I might try it.  I would really appreciate any and all comments, criticism or warnings.
kingharold
ebm
9,311 posts
 
Use the battery power supply sold by the company $1200.00 is not much if you can get a break on the price that's even better.Enjoy!!
ghdprentice
6,361 posts
 
I would also only use the power supply sold by the company. They would have put a significant effort into making sure it sounds good and perform well. Unless, you are and electrical engineer and reverse engineer it… or actually, I have known many scores of electrical engineers… I would definitely not believe anything they say… unless they worked for the company. Good audio is all about nuance, I wouldn’t take a chance… unless you want to buy and test a bunch of them. 
billwojo
397 posts
 
Sheeeesh, it's not rocket science to build a tightly regulated power supply. Why get ripped off by the manufacture when there are so many much cheaper alternatives. You really think that Clearaudio has something special going on aside from the price tag? Hell, you can find laboratory grade used power supplies on ebay for a few hundred dollars that can regulate voltage within fractions of a millivolt or even to microvolt levels with no noise or drift.
Companies like Hewlett Packard know tons more about regulated power supplies than some engineer at Clearaudio. But, hey, if you think that because it's sold by an audio company it's got special JuJu in it, go waste your money.


Billwojo
kingharold OP
304 posts
 
" I assume you are not married? " 
I was married up until July first of this year when Mary, my wife of fifty-one years, passed away.  Even before that I could get away with many things other audiophiles can't because my wife was a true audiophile and reproduced music lover herself.  At her funeral a long time friend (40 years +) who has been a audio professional all his adult life commented about how unusual Mary was that she understood the technical terms of sound reproduction and could intelligently discuss them.   When I told Mary I wanted to add two eighteen cubic foot sub woofers (Bill Fitzmaurice designed 25 Hz quarter wave corner horns) to the system in our den she just said, "OK, but let's make sure they look good."  She spent hours helping my apply blonde Burmese Teak veneer to the Baltic birch cabinets.
dadork
632 posts
 
@kingharold Thanks for relating the stories about your wife. That is a rare occurence I would say! Though my wife doesn't share my same enthusiasm she gives me a lot of leeway; but if she didn't I would take it! I know we have to compromise but I worked for it, I earned it and I can think of a lot of other things worse than enjoying music. WAF be damned!
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