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Battery-Powered Audio System Buzzing?

I’ve seen many people proclaim the merits of powering one’s audio system with a battery, rather than from the wall AC power. I purchased an Anker SOLIX BP1000 battery as a household backup in case of power outages. I figured why not give it a shot on the audio system.

Well, it powers the system just fine, however, there is a buzzing that comes through the speakers when using the battery as the power source. When plugged directly into the wall (or rather through a Zero Surge unit), there is no buzz. It is silent as can be. 

Does anyone have any ideas as to why the buzz might be happening when powered by the battery? Any insights would be much appreciated! For reference, I am running a Macbook -> Schiit Yggdrasil OG ->Don Sachs preamp -> Schiit Tyr monoblocks -> Tekton Encore towers.

 

sid-hoff-frenchman

Showing 4 responses by erik_squires

erik_squires
16,791 posts
 

OP:
 

You can get any Kill-A-Watt type of meters.  Just plug them into a nearby outlet or get one of these.  

I like the latter as the N-E measurements are sometimes useful. 

erik_squires
16,791 posts
 

Hi OP:

I'm curious if you watch your incoming house power.  Do you find the voltage keeps fluctuating or do you think it's more of a noise issue?


Best,

 

Erik 

erik_squires
16,791 posts
 

Glad I could help.  :) 

As far as I remember these issues arise due to the generator neutral and the house neutral not being bonded to the same reference point setting up a neutral/ground differential which causes current flow through the ground... or something like that.  At least this will point you in the right direction of explaining why. 

The solution besides putting everything on the battery would be to use transformer based isolators to anything not on the battery. 

erik_squires
16,791 posts
 

To follow on the already correct advice from @cleeds , it's a lot cheaper to provide a square wave output UPS than a sine wave.  Unless it specifically says "sine wave output" it probably is not.  

The square waves produce a lot of higher frequency harmonics (relative to 60 Hz) that make it through the power supplies.  Also make sure you don't have your system grounded through some other means, like using 1 device which is not battery powered but some that are.  It could do weird things in terms of the ground voltage.  This includes coaxial and USB connections. 

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