Switching to battery power

My There's 340 is battery powered.. Fantastic turntable. I'm not looking to replace it anytime soon

Using battery power on my TW AC3 turntable its dead quiet and very dynamic.

Anyone using a Tesla Powerwall to run their system?

Good and timely question. Over the years I have heard a number of units that were spectacular sounding that run off battery power. My Aurender WE20se has an internal battery. It seems logical that if you could run your whole system... what potential. I hope someone has tried it.

My There’s 340 is battery powered.. Fantastic turntable. I’m not looking to replace it anytime soon

lol! artemus_5 Got to watch the spell-check, it turned Teres into "There’s"!

My Miller Carbon turntable is built on Chris’s Teres bearing, platter, and motor. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 It started with the early edition motor pod, was upgraded to battery power, then on and on up to the current extensively modified version with Teres Verus rim drive.

Battery power is definitely an improvement. Do it right and batteries completely eliminate all the EMI and RFI and other problems of AC. The power is cleaner and more consistent and you hear it in an altogether more natural sound. Hard to believe, we are after all talking about the motor. Just the motor. But even just that one thing makes a real difference.

I have to think the improvement would be even greater with sensitive components like a phono stage, DAC or CDP. But I haven’t tried, don’t know from experience. Things that don’t draw a lot of power would be the logical way to go.

Whatever you do, remember I said,"do it right"? That means completely disconnected from AC when running battery. Most battery systems use AC to charge, which is fine. But the AC line must be physically switched off and disconnected to get the full benefit. Otherwise whatever noise is on the AC line simply rides right on across the battery.

This one I do know from experience because Chris designed his battery to automatically disconnect from the charger when the motor is powered on. Without this feature if you run off battery while the battery is charging it is not as good. You can hear it. So make sure your battery system has this auto-disconnect feature. 

PS the Tesla Powercell is a great way to spend $20k burning your house down. Do a search. How Tesla is able to continue selling cars and electrical panels that burst into flames like this is beyond me. Mass delusion. Lotta that these days.

pauly
Switching to battery power

Only good if the equipment you intend putting on battery "has voltage regulators for every stage of it’s design". Then everything stays as the designer calculated for it to work optimally.

If no voltage regulators are present then the circuit design parameters will over under voltage depending on battery charge, this is not good for sound as the circuit/s will not be working optimally

Cheers George

Yeti, but they are 'relatively' expensive, but provides a pure sine-wave

My ASR Emitter II Exclusive power amp runs off a battery that's charged by two power supplies. The sound is so clean that my other components are only filtered by a PS Audio passive line conditioner and some Akiko Audio tuning sticks. Milwaukee makes a lithium battery generator that produces a pure sign wave. Here's a review, https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/60304-surprising-budget-audiophile-product/

My new DAC uses super-capacitors that are said to act like batteries.  When I go from stand-by to on, it takes a bit over 2 minutes for the super-capacitors to charge.  Why don't designers use these more?

I use a Thales turntable and have never been happier.

I have never heard ASR but a friend whose opinion I highly respect on these matters says it’s the best sounding integrated out there. 
(Both Thales and ASR are battery powered)

Running very low level devices like phono stages off batteries makes sense. Channel D does this with several of their phono stages including the $60,000 Seta L20. The AC charger is switched off during operation. 
Otherwise, there is no significant benefit worth the expense. We have excellent power supplies.
In theory since a really big battery is a really big capacitor you could build a very powerful amplifier around one. I am no expert in this but it seems that the cost and size of such an amplifier are prohibitive as nobody seems to want to make it.

I have never heard ASR but a friend whose opinion I highly respect on these matters says it’s the best sounding integrated out there.

Yes but they can go crazy, and that heatsink cracking and popping is the bias going nutz, very dangerous.

 

When the battery supply gets too low, weird things begin happening, like the inputs start switching on their own making the music go back and forth between glorious and blah. The Direct no longer is Direct but Input 5, even though the lights indicate it is Direct. The amp is susceptible to weirdness when the heat sinks suddenly pop and crack at random intervals and scare you with low level music

Cheers George

I’ve never had a problem George and Herr Friedrich has been making ASR since the early 1980’s. It’s now at the tech because I have a signal cut in the right channel but this is the first time since I bought it that I’ve had repair work done.
Any views on the Milwaukee lithium generator?

Just a copy/paste from an owner Idiosyncratic, responding on the Stereophile review of it.

Cheers George

George, I find this post odd. To make the claim that lights are turning on and to not know what they are for. Trying to play the amp with an uncharged battery, etc... It's as though he's making up issues or he's not operating the amp in the way it's intended.

For those who are looking at a no cost option, this unit seems to be a favorite. I still wonder how different it would be from the above mentioned Milwaukee MX.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/0218/Stromtank_S2500_Battery_Power_Review.htm

@goofyfoot 

"There was no difference in the resulting sound quality when the Stromtank S2500 was powering my front-end versus the Goal Zero Yeti 400. None."
GOAL ZERO YETI 400 LITHIUM PORTABLE POWER STATION – REVIEW BY ENJOY THE MUSIC.COM - Headphone Guru

George, I find this post odd.

I can understand if the logic circuit for the input switching get low voltage, it could send it into random switching between inputs.
But it's the heatsink creaking popping noises, that’s much more worrying, because the correct bias is all important for the amps safety.
Anyway like I said 1st post, it’s not a good idea to have "varying battery voltage" powering unregulated sections in the audio chain, as they are adjust to a certain voltage for optimum performance, and that is 99% of the poweramp section of integrateds, like this one probably.

Cheers George

pauly, why would the Goal Zero be preferred to over the Milwaukee?

@goofyfoot

I have no idea. The power station I like is the Ego. POWER+ Nexus Portable Power Station (3000W) | EGO (egopowerplus.com)

I just happen to run across the article re the Goal Zero and Strom and thought I'll share it with you.

I wouldn’t know which (Goal Zero vs. Milwaykee vs. Ego) would sound better and I do not have the financial means to buy all three and compare them. I was hoping somebody here may have tried a few and could shed light on it.

pauly, I'm left wondering why a generator that produces a pure sign wave is an advantage? The Strom and the Milwaukee both produce a pure sign wave so I was thinking that the Milwaukee would be the best option. However my electricity at home doesn't produce any type of sound wave that I'm aware of. Also, you might consider the wattage of the unit and the possibility of the generator over heating. 
The EGO has a good price tag. It doesn't include the batteries. Four of those may end up costing you about $300.00. Which ever generator you buy, please let us know what you think.

Starting later this month I will be living off the grid until September.  I have excepted a "Caretaker" position for a Battery/Solar power cabin in the mountains. I'm taking my bedroom system,  Spica TC 50 speakers and a newer Pioneer VSX-522 receiver.  The front end will be either Phone or Computer and if power turns out not to be an issue. I will take up my SL-10 TT and JD-9 pre. I'll report back.

@goofyfoot 

Our AC mains is a 50Hz - 60Hz sine wave, so that's why the battery power stations are made to create them - to match the mains power.

If you feed your electronics a square wave or modified sign wave you may damage them. And if you don't, I'm sure your sound quality would be terrible. So a "pure wave" power station is the way to go.

Question is, just how pure is the pure wave? None of the battery power stations manufacturers publish that, so I'm going to have to roll the dice on that one.

To your point re wattage, I want at least 3 - 4 times higher continuous power output from the battery power plant than what my equipment will draw. 

pauly, please let us know how the EGO sounds.

My Zyx Artisan phono stage is battery-powered and hard to beat in terms of S/N ratio and speed. As pointed out above it makes most sense where small amounts of DC power are needed. 

That said anyone converting a whole system with a Tesla power cell pls report on your experience

@millercarbon,

how did you convert your Verus Rim Drive and what is involved? Sounds very intriguing. What weight is your platter?

I’ve done it before: fully off-grid battery powered audio system. At the moment, my preamps are the only thing on the grid when I’m playing music. Long story short - battery power done right can sound fantastically smooth and detailed. Where it seems to lack (unless you put a lot of effort into it) is with musical transients - like the smack of a kick drum. Right now I find myself enjoying classical music the most - the harmonics are so full and rich! I don’t seem to enjoy music as much that has extremely demanding transients. It’s a bit hard to explain because batteries have plenty of current capacity - I’ve accidentally melted copper wire before when wiring up batteries. I think it has to do with having too few amp-hours, the high internal resistance of the batteries, etc. It’s hard to compete with the grid in that regard. Sitting between 120 volts with megawatt size generators providing the voltage and current isn’t too shabby. I’ve got to wonder how large battery banks and/or capacitors/supercaps would sound. 

Feedback part 1:

My DAC (RME ADI-2) runs off a little wall wart power supply. While I was deciding which power station to buy for the rest of my equipment, I decided to buy a 12v Lithium Ion battery pack for the DAC to see if the sound improved.

The improvement to the sound is astonishing. Nothing subtle about it. The battery cost me $89 and I have never experienced such an improvement from any tweak even costing 10 times as much. In short, if you have equipment that is powered by a little wall wart, going to a battery is a no-brainer.

I left the DAC running last night and the battery still has three bars (out of 4) lit after more than 12 hours, so for my application at least, the battery has got more than sufficient power for even the longest listening sessions. 

The battery I bought was a TalentCell 12V Lithium ion Battery PB120B2, but there are a number of other that I'm sure will work just as well.

I have no affiliation with the Talencell company. 

My DAC (RME ADI-2) runs off a little wall wart power supply. While I was deciding which power station to buy for the rest of my equipment, I decided to buy a 12v Lithium Ion battery pack for the DAC to see if the sound improved.

The improvement to the sound is astonishing. Nothing subtle about it.

I concur with this experience with mine....

My NOS dac work with an internal battery run with an external linear power supply that refresh it constantly....Starting point systems french dac.... Best ratio quality/price...

You do not power the amplifier with a pure sine wave. You power it with pure DC. If pure DC is coming out of your power supply using whatever comes out of your wall socket than purchasing any power source is a total and complete waste of money. If pure DC does not come out of the power supply of any electronic device than it's power supply is garbage and that piece needs to be replaced. 
If you want to know what your power supply is doing just hook up an oscilloscope to it. You should see a perfectly flat line at the voltage spec of the power supply. Now that is a static measurement. The power supply also has to meet the demands of the device. If it is a power amplifier it has to be able to supply the power necessary to support the full specified output. There should not be a voltage drop. This is not affected by the cleanliness of the AC supplied to the unit.

" You do not power the amplifier with a pure sine wave. You power it with pure DC."

The input to every amplifier I have ever owned has been 110v AC. I don’t plug my amplifiers into a DC source and never have, I plug them into an AC source as per the manufacturers guidance.

"If pure DC is coming out of your power supply using whatever comes out of your wall socket than purchasing any power source is a total and complete waste of money."

Multiple blind tests done by multiple individuals has shown that noise on the AC will negatively effect sound quality and that a mains source with less noise will improve sound.

Most knowledgeable audiophiles on this forum are well aware of it, have had actual experience of this phenomenon, and go to some length to reduce noise on their AC input.

" If you want to know what your power supply is doing just hook up an oscilloscope to it. You should see a perfectly flat line at the voltage spec of the power supply. Now that is a static measurement ...

This is not affected by the cleanliness of the AC supplied to the unit. "

If you believe that the quality of the AC input does not effect sound, why are you posting on this thread? This thread is in part to improve AC quality through the use of batteries and inverters. Clearly you have nothing of value to add in this regard.

@goofyfoot 

Feedback part II

I bought this  EcoFlow RIVER Portable Power Station . I did because it was cheap, it had very good reviews, it does what I am looking for, and this particular model can be be expanded/enlarged.

A few days before it arrived I had amp issues and had to switch to my backup amp which am not as familiar with. Also, right before it arrived, part of my acoustic treatment fell off my ceiling - no treatment for the first reflection point of left speaker. The battery gods were not helping it seems?

My setup for the amp is a Furmam pro, feeding a 1mtr Wireworld silver electra into a balanced transformer and then a 3mtr  Wireworld silver electra to feed the amp. That I changed to the ecoflow and the 3mtr silver eletra. 

Right off the bat I felt there was a a little more detail I could not hear before or could barely hear before. I was very impressed given the lack of diffusion in my ceiling that I felt added detail. What was even more impressive is that I normally listen at night as my sound is not that good the day, but I this was during the day. It had turned day into night. Very impressive given my pre amp and streamer was still on mains power. 

The sound was not constrained in any way, in fact if anything it sounded more dynamic than ever. 

Other nice things about this battery is that it has a couple of 5v and 12v DC output too, so you can run equipment that rely on wallwarts.
It's also wifi enabled, and you can keep an eye battery levels etc. from your iPad. 

The not so good things. The battery went down waaaaay faster than I thought when using 120v AC. The 5v and 12v DC output would last days, but the AC out seems to be very inefficient.  Note, my spud amp draws only 35 watts and has an output of a whopping 2wpc into 8ohms.

It also has a fan which would run when the AC was used. It's very quiet, but you have to orientate the battery so the fan exhaust point away from you (and not at a hard reflective surface)

I've ordered the EcoFlow RIVER Extra Battery which I believe will give me around 5 hours of listening. 

I highly highly highly recommend switching to battery, but I would suggest going for the larger models for components that consume 120v AC. 

pauly, that sounds great. I have my DAC, renderer, Quad 2905 ESL's, phono amp and turntable that I would like to power by a battery generator and the ECO is affordable.

I'm not sure how I would manage to keep my ESL's plugged in if connected to the battery.

Take 2 on the battery charge. 
For some reason my battery is not getting drained today. I suspect I had not had it fully charged before. I had on charge over night and most of the morning. It’s hanging in there like a champ tonight. 

I gotta find a way to use a battery generator but keep my Quad ESL's plugged into power 24/7. Any ideas?

My ecoflow can be used as a ups. So you can plug your ESLs into the ecoflow and keep the ecoflow plugged into the mains. While you listen, you unplug the mains. As soon as you stop listening, plug the ecoflow back into the mains. 

All-right, thanks Pauly. I was thinking that but I wasn't sure.

Pauly, Wrong. The amplifier section of every power amplifier you have ever listened to is powered by DC. The DC is supplied by it's power supply from whatever AC power you supply it. With a properly regulated power supply the quality of that AC power makes absolutely no difference. None, nada, zilch, zero.  If it does make a difference the power supply is not adequately regulated. It is pure lay instinct and totally incorrect to believe some additional power regulating device is needed. But is is a free country and you are entitled to believe all the silly mythology slathering the audio market.   

Pauly, Wrong. The amplifier section of every power amplifier you have ever listened to is powered by DC

Please just shut up. You said, and I quote you verbatim " You do not power the amplifier with a pure sine wave. You power it with pure DC." Now you’re trying to tell me you said the "amplifier section". You said no such thing

With a properly regulated power supply the quality of that AC power makes absolutely no difference. None, nada, zilch, zero.

I just tried it and it does. I trust my ears a lot more than the cr*p you post.

You don’t have anything of value to add, all you do is irritate those who try have a discussion to get some attention. Get lost.

@mijostyn,

obviously you continue to inhabit a Leibniz ‘best of all conceivable worlds’
To us lesser mortals, there are substantial audible and demonstrable benefits from cleaning up the AC via separate spurs, passive or active filtering and improvements to the earth connection. But then you seem to know how to perfectly regulate a power supply to make those efforts futile: more power to you!
But: until you tell us how, shut the f*** up!

@antigrunge

The guy posted pictures of his "sound system". His amplifiers were sitting  on his speakers. I kid you not. I really, honest to God, kid you not.

Enough said. 

@goofyfoot 

My model can act as a UPS, but best you confirm before you buy other models or other manufacturers offerings. 

Are you planning to jump in all at once, or do the DAC or phono first and see how it works for you? 

pauly, I plan to try my digital front end and then my phono amp and turntable. I’ll try those first, plugged directly into the battery and then through the passive line conditioner. The ECO is affordable by comparison to the other generator’s and if it does the job of powering everything besides my amplifier, then I’ll be happy.
I can say the ASR that I own is highly thought of by many in the audio community and their flagship components consist of the larger amplifier, two power supplies and the battery. Purchasing the power supplies and battery is costly but it raises the bar sound wise. I do not doubt that your hearing a difference with your amp connected to the battery.  I believe that at some point, interchangeable, after market battery units specifically for audio equipment will be common place.

@goofyfoot 

My DAC came with a 12v wall-wart. I put that onto a 12v Lithium battery I got off Amazon a few weeks ago already. The improving was amazing. I have a RME DAC.

I think your phono should also benefit a lot too - the signal inside a phono is very small, so the more you can waylay noise the better.

The amp which takes 120 AC from the power station also sounds better than it ever has before. There is just that something in the music that I didn't hear before. It's razor sharp, but still delicate and gentle - if that makes any sense to you. 

Anyway, let us know what your experience are. I'm 110% sold on batteries now.  

pauly, It will be some time as my amp is still with the tech and that won't be cheap to get it back. I'll probably post something about it when the time comes. Anyway, happy listening!

I have a M2 Tech Vaughn DAC that runs on battery power and disconnecting the power cord from it and running solely on a fully charged battery is a true revelation. 

Check it out here: https://6moons.com/audioreviews/m2tech5/3.html

@goofyfoot 

Some random feedback.

I downloaded some new software for the battery - it is on my network and I can monitor it from my iPad. With the new software, the fan does not go on while driving my amp.

(Note, my amp only draws 35 Watts which is little more than what a DAC or CD player would draw.) 

For kicks-and-giggles I ran the toaster off the battery. The toaster drew close on 700 Watts(!) of power and the fan turned on from the get go and the unit did heat up. 

I did get the extended battery for my unit. I now seldom have my battery go below 85% during an evening of listening. Keep in mind my amp is very frugal power wise. You can expect the same or better performance on your front end components.

Lastly, the unit unit can be switched between 50Hz and 60Hz output. I am not sure if I am imagining things, but I'm sure my amp sounds better on 50Hz. I suspect the rectifier has an easier time with the slower cycle, and/or it has an easier time dealing with ripples at 50Hz than 60Hz.