Uninterruptible power supply

Has anyone used an uninterruptible power supply with their K50? I’m looking for one that has no adverse effect on sound quality
Thanks

I’d be looking for a positive effect on SQ! :wink:

Why specifically for the K50? Are you suffering a lot of outages due to HV faults in your area? I know from experience how annoying that can be as the auto breakers will keep trying to reconnect resulting in multiple disconnection/re-connections & the associated spikes/surges.

I have a zero surge filter inline with a PS Audio p10 powerplant for power conditioning. And yes I get a lot of power outages In the winter
Im thinking a ups between the zero surge and the p10 but don’t know any to reduce SQ

Another much cheaper alternative which won’t actually stop the supply going off but will stop it coming back on until the power has stabilised sufficiently & you’re happy to reconnect, is to fit an active RCD socket outlet. These trip on a power outage & need to be manually re-set to restore supply.

Take note that it must be an active RCD socket. I can’t say for certain that it won’t have any detrimental effect on the sound, but being as you’re using a mains regenerator the likelihood of it doing so is greatly reduced. I use a conditioner nowadays rather than a re-generator & installed an active RCD socket outlet for that very reason of far too frequent power outages due to HV faults. I was fully expecting a downturn in sound quality, but ended up very pleasantly surprised to find that in my case it made no difference.

I’ve had a few P.S Audio power plants & the earlier ones (P600’s) used to stay off in the event of a power outage. Having the later units come back on again as soon as power is restored & with no user interaction was a retrograde step in my opinion.

I also tried the PurePower range of re-generators with UPS facility inbuilt but I’d be loathe to recommend those to you. They did the job, but with the first one I owned, when battery replacement became due it transpired that those batteries were no longer available.

The second supposedly improved model has an umbilical to a separate battery pack, but the build quality was shocking & it went bang just outside warranty filling the room with rather a lot of smoke & the strong smell of burning. It took months before the smell finally dissipated. Whatever you decide I’d personally suggest you stay clear of those.

Marc, I can’t help with your UPS question. I see a suggestion of going down the route of making sure the power to the system stays off after an outage and I can see the attraction of that in that it keeps away from any sound quality issues of the UPS option.

As an aside I used to have a P10 (basically to reduce my mains from 250V to 230V because my tube amps at the time did not thrive on my 250V mains voltage) but then I sold the amplifiers and I realised that the P10 was adding a certain hardness to the upper frequencies. The P10 was sold and replaced with a balanced mains transformer powering all my kit. The sound improved very nicely when the P10 was taken out of the system. At the time I did some measuring and the P10 was also firing a lot of noise back into the mains wall socket.

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My experience has been the P10 hurts the sound of power amps but improves the sound of source equipment. I have 2 one for my digital sources and one for my analog sources. Although the p10 wattage exceeds what is necessary I chose those for their low source impedance. They do the trick in my system but I’d never use them on a power amp no mater what the manufacturer states!

One of the main inconveniences I’m trying to avoid is the long start up process so I thought a ups might be the answer?

The only reason I settled with what I did, is because I couldn’t find anything by way of a UPS that I deemed suitable. The problem of power interruptions has eased greatly of late :crossed_fingers: but being as I’m on the end of an extremely long rural HV network there’s always going to be potential for the problem to get worse again.

If you’re getting a lot of problems with outages, then as well as your existing surge filter you may wish to consider getting an SPD fitted at your incoming mains to protect all of your other household equipment as well. They aren’t inserted inline but connect in parallel & as such will have zero negative effects on sound quality or anything else for that matter.

They cost very little to buy & fit but could potentially save you an absolute fortune.

I think the sacrifice of sound quality from using a consumer UPS may be significant, unfortunately. None are designed with low impedance in mind.

What’s as important as the battery backup is the capability of a UPS to tell a device to shut itself down because eventually the battery will run out of juice. I know of no audiophile server that offers that hook.

Or power is restored in time to prevent a shut down which is most of my events

Yeah I get a lot of those too and wish there was an audiophile solution.

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If you do find something suitable that isn’t sonically detrimental then please share that information. I for one would be very interested as it’s far from a new quest for me & started a number of years before I ever bought a K50.

Again, I’m home most of the time & disconnection until such time as the power has stabilised suits me just fine with the other audio components. In fact that’s exactly what I require & I use the same active RCD protection on my AV amplification. However with my K50 I’d prefer to be able to shut it down properly.

Unfortunately I’ll experience no power outages for months & then several in a short time period.

Depending on how often one’s power goes out, there are some promising uses of the Tesla Powewall along with a potential sound quality improvement as reviewed here.

I’m planning on a Tesla roof on the house I’m building this year. That is a great solution. Thanks for bringing that up.

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