In general, Paul is right, though I like to add that there are plenty of amps that run on 30 or fewer volts. Hook them up to a 30v battery, and you have a battery-powered amp.
Amplifiers typically always run on a rail voltage that's lower than what's in the wall socket, but it might not be practical (or approved by insurance companies) to have DC lines in the house. But maybe some time in the future we'll use more DC locally, it could perhaps bring car and home audio a little closer. 🙂
@@Pete.across.the.street The hypex amp modules seem good for this application. They have different voltages for different areas of the amp and are class D, so are efficient. Typically, overall, they use 65v- 65v+, battery wise you’d need 120-130v tapped in the centre - with 65v- at one half, and 65v+ at the other. The other stage of their d-class amp runs at 25v- / 25v+ which would be tapped at the batteries closer to the 0 point, I think this powers a controller. Plus they have on board regulators - for what it’s worth. My experiments with cheap amp modules running off lifepo is that what they lack in bass authority (not running off the mains, which offers so much sonic advantages in comparison), batteries have this “off grid” which once you get used to is hard to live without. If you have an amplifier module which sounds good without having separately powered stages, please share*.
EV traction battery will be 400 or 800V DC. But the priciple is sound. The answer is, stick an oscilloscope on the AC outlet and see how good the sine wave is, and how clean the curves, any other artifacts. Then to see how it looks at the DC side of the source and amps, see how clean it converts. The added issue is how well the power source can react to fast transient peaks. Hope that helps.
Reminds me of the olden days of early battery tube radios. they used at least two separate batteries. One for the tube heaters, and the other for the B+ (high voltage). Modern solid state amps kinda mimic that using various taps from a power transformer to get the voltages needed for the different stages. That could be, again mimic'd with batteries, but you would need 3 or more dedicated sets of them to supply both plus and minus rail voltages, pre amp stages between 12 and 40 volts, illumination and all that.
This is where DIY can excel. The issue Paul describes is all the result of using DC batteries to power our gear which is designed to use 120V AC. With DIY it is easy today to use battery power for the sensitive digital bits. iancanada is a Toronto designer who makes lego block parts for diy digital front ends. He has popularized the use of lithium batteries with great results. Then he took the step of using supercaps to aid in filtering. Then the ultimate power supply which is to use a massive 3000F pair of supercaps as the power supply. Combined with a good clock, the sound will destroy all but the best mega buck DAC. But all of this eliminates the constraint of a device designed for standard AC.
Here's a thought. If there were higher voltage batteries, as high as the voltage in an audio piece, how about using the battery as the power supply. Our gear runs on DC so why convert the DC of a battery to AC only to have the electronic gear power supply turn it back again to DC?
EVs don't have "lower voltage" DC as the main power source. They run with 400 or even 800 Volts (disregarding the 2nd circuit with 12, 24 or 48 Volts).
I have a yeti battery which I find can really improve the sound of some components. Depending on the equipment it can be a large change in sound depth and clarity.
The best way to run audio equipment on battery power is directly from batteries. Sounds simple. but each component has specific needs that are not likely to be the same as any other's, so you would likely need a separate set of cells for every item. Then there is the problem of the current needed. For preamps it's not much; for CD players and tape decks it becomes considerable; some turntables could make it difficult; for power amplifiers it is really impractical.
I think Paul missed the point. Battery voltage, Catered to the internals equipment needs. Bypass the 120v power supply/inverter to step it down to needed voltage. Also, not taking about EV vehicle. Conventional fuel powered vehicle need a good/sound battery. The battery acts as the “constant” regarding charging voltage. If you have a Bad Battery, the engine computer is unable to control charging voltage properly. To have large enough battery to meet the required voltage and amp load would be very sound/quiet power.
Danny went another way by choosing electronics designed from the start to be battery-powered with their own batteries . That's the right way to do it , although it severely limits what gear is available because most gear is designed for AC power .
I used to feed my phono preamp with battery, 12 volts 7 amperes, the sound is great if you use nice caps to filter. Now I used a linear power supply, I get tired of charging the battery's. The phono should always stay on.
@@GuareschiGuillermoThe battery should last a long time if it's only on when you use it. My Pro-Ject Phono pre-amp has not on/off but I cut the power when I do not use it. Maybe better to keep it on all the time.
Essentially any audio gear that works with a wall wart can be improved with a better power supply and many times even batteries. That is fine for pre amps, dacs and notebooks or MacMini/NUCs. Power amps with batteries need big high efficiency speakers. An inverter is not usually a good thing because they do let some of the garbage through.
Paul mentioned that he was thinking of getting solar panels for his house eventually. Do it! I literally haven't paid for electricity since I installed solar panels on my house 5 years ago, and that includes charging our Tesla!
I know I will get comments disputing my experience, but I am on solar panels and when I’m running on their output through the supplied inverters I normally get better sound. I don’t have batteries (yet - maybe some day) but that might give me technically cleaner power.
Can I use an earphone splitter thing on my tablet to power two different types of bookshelf speaker systems, without any type of technical stuff that I don't understand, causing damage to either the tablet or the speakers? I don't like to take chances without finding out first.
Paul says it is better to take only solar panels but i have only solar panels but there is also a inverter in between. Is this bringing also DC? I playing with the gato dia class d is it better to put a dc filter?
I’ve been using an APC computer backup power supply on my system for years. Relatively inexpensive and eliminates power supply line glitches. I don’t see a downside to using UPS units designed for computers on hi fi equipment.
No it is not clean at all! There is a inverter from the car battery to your 120v/230v or whatever you have in your country. Just that Paul is saying that inberter chopping is killing any gains in cleaniness you want to gain. Been there done that.. And messured only crap out in the end.. Go the other way and just build your own power amps that uses DC from a battery direct.. In that case no switching and noisy inverter is needed! So transform to a DIY and learn new things.❤
Inverters have a switching power supply, that is not good, I m using battery for sensitive components, SSD, clocks, USB card etc using big filtering, that works great
I thought the video would go in a different direction - feeding the electronics directly by direct current from the battery, bypassing the traffo and rectifier. That was my question to all the audiophiles and never get an straight answer why not!
That's exactly what I thought - immediately! HiFi equippment usually runs internally on 12 V DC, well, except for the power amplifier. So it would only need a simple and clean DC-conversion to the desired voltage. Maybe there will be special battery driven amplifiers using the typical output of home batteries (car or solar) in the future. This would be an enormous step forward making things so much easier and better!
@@georgebliss964 I see it different - what is 'good enough' in a branch, that is financially powered by extreme enthusiasts. Batteries will become better, cheaper and environmentally safer - we're at the very start of this technology at the moment. There's a lot going on in R&D, driven by the growing need of more than two small batteries for your Walkman or MP3-Player. Even now, at the very beginning, there are some first solutions at the market. I believe, that these big batteries will be the future of home energy supply, reducing the peaks of energy conversion dramatically by buffering when the demand is low. There will be a time, when direct DC-Outlets at every room will reduce the need of power converters dramatically. So why not power your audiophile high end gear with clean DC - especially when you can avoid quite some problems with AC/DC conversion that easy?
I run 4 Taramps Bass 8k's off of 3, 45 amp hour cmax banks charging them with 2 , 370 amp alternators in my truck. Each amp is wired at 1 ohm, to a Dual 2 ohm 18" subwoofer with 4" coils and about a hundred pound motor. I have them In a 4th order bandpass blowthru enclosure that I designed myself. It helps me cope with everyone's bullshit on the roadways.Believe it or not , when I'm trying to get to work people will actually get off there cell phones and drive their cars , if for no other reason, just to try to get away from the bass.😂
1) The power from an electric vehicle is not necessarily clean. Yes, it is off the public grid, which is great. But who knows what noise is being generated within the vehicle's electronics? I doubt that EV manufacturers put in a meaningful effort for the output to be noise free, when people will generally use it to power their refrigerator during a blackout. Someone will have to try it, and do a listening test. And they will need a long extension cord, where that, too, will be a factor in the quality of the power delivery to the stereo. And the results will probably vary from EV model to EV model. Even the same EV models might differ, as the manufacturer might make design changes during a production run. Two vinyl pressings, from the same pressing plant, often sound different. So I would not put it passed the EV manufacturers to not be consistent if they sourced parts from different places, and found savings here or there, etc, resulting in quality changes to the power delivery -- which no one would know, when powering their refrigerator or electric drill, etc. 2) Several commercial level UPS's (uninterruptible power supplies) do the double conversion (A/C to D/C to A/C), resulting in a clean, off the grid, newly generated pure sine wave output. Can those double conversion UPS's deliver the voltage fast, to satisfy the immediate demand from audio gear? Well, they are not marketed for audio gear. But maybe they will work well for audio gear? Eaton Powerware has UPS models that will deliver clean power. Any model that starts with the number "9" will do so, such as the model "9SX". Tripp Lite also has such models (but I am not familiar with their model naming scheme. Liebert is another company. There are others. Their top models will power an entire town (megawatts of power), and will cost as much as a town. But there are dual conversion models that are sub $1000 (providing, perhaps, 1000 watts), and sub $2000 for 1500 watts (and the wattage and price keeps going north from there). Are they better suited than PS Audio's Power Plant, for audio gear? Probably not. But who knows?
I'm amazed you don't have solar- any panels on the company hq roof? I have solar on my barn roof, and 2 x 20kw batteries. Even here in Wales I'm self sufficient, and export too, which means most of the time my power is coming from my twin inverters. I'm more a music lover than audiophile, but got annoyed hearing pumps and compressors coming on through my house mains system. On the rare occasions (mid wet- winter) we are importing electricity noise is worse, we are at the end of a rural line, a long way from the power plant.With my limited budget I solved it with a filtered extension lead, and also replaced the power supplies to my WiiM streamer, which was like waving a magic wand. I probably spent £200 cleaning up my house electrics, which was money well spent, even though it represents 20% of my (used) system cost. So, purely unscientifically my battery power seems much cleaner (even my wife noticed her p.c and internet ran better), and there is no special filtering .
Talking about that nasty chopping noise that needs to be gotten rid of I wonder Why the reviews of Bob Carver's " magnetic Field " amplifiers never complained of a noise issue and often were quite impressed with the sound quality for the money when Bob fed his power transformer the chopped and ugly looking output from a triac ( like in many light dimmers ) which was controlled by musical demands as a way of regulating his power rails. making them impervious to changes in line voltage .
Well , using a car for that is indeed stupid. But one can indeed build or modify an amplifier to run directly on a battery pack. And its a better solution Than main's voltage.
why you talking about inverter the car has an inverter he said 120 volts AC not DC and if it's a true sign wave will be clean. you can always put a 1F on the output to your equipment for a bit more extra filtration smoothing. to his question what you didn't answer yes you can plug it straight into your equipment should sound better.
Unfortunately, many solar photovoltaic panels (combined with batteries) might not «cut everything down» (ref. Planet of Humans (2019, Gibbs)). Meanwhile, public transportation (trolleybus if it's available) , high speed train instead of airplanes and cities better designed for proximity (walking and cycling is enough in traditional cities) will limit traffic jams and our impact. Reality and ecological science vs green washing marketing of big non ecological companies.
@@Ineedtotakeabreak Most cities are good enough. Some of the new ones where people need their fancy gasoline or electric car (to feel more «green») and wait in traffic jams to buy a slice of bread or go to work are the problem. Since electric battery powered houses and cars are around CO2 levels have raised even faster, even if their clients think they are doing well. Lower impedance and lower noise power sources for audio might need a more traditional and green approach if it's available. I don't see anything new outhere expect ITER that can change the situation. Meanwhile, common sense and proven technologies might be a good solution in powering audio and our lives. Maybe more class D or AB amplifiers in summer, although class A are fine in winter...
It bothers me that we have High voltage AC power to move electricity around geographically, most electrical products, with the exception of some specific motors, utilise power natively in DC, particularly now as many domestic tools, like computers, Vacuum cleaners, DIY and gardening power tools, are moving to portable wireless units running on 22v Lithium. Any DC-DC conversions needed for say specific digital electronics are done in circuit. The Inverter to transformer rectifier topology seems a little wasteful and redundant.
The high voltage for distribution is necessary to limit power losses. I am no expert, but I would imagine that the high-power transformers in the distribution network are designed to be pretty efficient. But I do think the power supply topology inside peoples homes needs a rethink. For each home a centrally generated 12V DC supply alongside the 110/240V AC sockets would be worth considering; this could then also easily switch to solar whenever available.
Battery power in an EV is extremely clean until the battery dies and then it goes to a battery graveyard where it does not disintegrate and is incredibly toxic.
@@Expedition18 We well need a lot of gas, diesel to grind those batteries and make dust, lot ofwater to filter plastics, more carbon generated electricity to make electrolytic separation of metals, a lot of petrol to mine pure silicon crystals for solar panels, much more to buy heavy new cars (that won't work for decades) Is CO2 going up or down since big corporations are «green» (the same that fought against science and scientific ecologist) ? The solution needs a real change: sticking a solar panel in the roof and driving a 2,5 t vehicle instead of public transportation, cycling or walking or keeping old cars (the good ones) won't help much. It might be worse indeed.
@@Expedition18 Oil production, at least in the US is well paid and well regulated. Rare earths are mined under terrible conditions with 25000 children involved in cobalt mining in Congo alone.
We’re talking about batteries that enable a 2175 kg metal box and its passengers to travel 400+km. It may not allow you to heat your house in subzero temperatures but it will most likely run a lot of things for a decent amount of time.
