@sns Initially, and over a bit longer term thought I preferred the battery to conditioned AC, but over long term felt like I was missing something, couldn't put my finger on it. So back to AC conditioned power, discovered drive, impact were the missing ingredients.
@tksteingraber It sounded noticeably different. Cleaner, crisper, brighter but it felt to clean and just wasn’t as enjoyable as my house AC. I have since moved on.
@audiomanpr
After doing much more listening on the battery and from the wall I have to step back some of my praise for the battery.
I am beginning to come to the same conclusion as you guys. I'm in love with the clarity and clean tone of the overall presentation but there is slam and drive missing with the battery. I see the benefits of both at this point and I'm happy using either. If I could combine the two it would be perfect. Perhaps a battery more suitable for audio applications is necessary as well. With a really quality inverter and a huge heatsink that wouldn't require a noisy fan. The Jackery I have says it puts out 110v pure sine wave. Not enough for my hungry tube preamp huh?
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After many reading on DC/AC inverter topic, I put together a system using a low frequency pure sine wave power inverter (the one that use big toroidal transformer) and 8, 3.2 vdc low impedance prismatic Lifepo4 batteries to power all my front end. With all the front end connected to this system and the power amplifier connected directly to the wall, the system sound ok but lost some of the dynamic range I am used to, but also sound much more refined. The system sound much better and dynamics with all front end connected to the Niagara 5000. There is much more than just having a clean AC power, like: isolation between components (Niagara do), proper noise reduction through components chassis ground (SR and Shunyata do) and quick current delivery. In fact, DC/AC inverters aren't AC noise or distortion free. Some inverters are much better than others for this application. I did other tests that I believe some of the readers here will find interesting.
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I agree, @carlsbad . B+ is a real problem for batteries - it’s often 300VDC or more. That governed my choice of technologies: I use aerospace solid state running at +/- 6VDC for phono-pre.
One solution is NiCad batteries, which are about 1.3VDC / cell when freshly charged, rapidly dropping to 1.2 - 1.25, and staying there for the rest of their discharge cycle. Not perfect, but the full complementary design helps to null out any voltage issues if those are symmetrical, which they are, as both rails drop to just over 6 VDC.
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@bernadie5317 indeed that would be theoretically nice. However many amps use several different voltages out of their transformers and tube amps generally are going to requre ac to drive a transformer to make the b+ voltages and other things. For a DAc or other component operating on a single DC voltage you might get great result. Batteries won't hold a constant voltage over a long listening period unless they are very oversized. So that may be an issue. I've never heard personally of anyone doing this but I bet it's been done.
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Interesting thread. I recently purchased a Battery powered Dodd Audio preamp from a friend. Its addition to my system is a revelation. Getting Audiophiles off the grid might get them some sleep at night, since most of the guys I know listen from around 10 to 2 o’clock in the morning, to avoid dirty power.
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since recently learning of battery and super capacitor power supply i have been wondering how it is connected to devices expecting 60Hz 120V . so from these posts i learned of inverters . would it not make more sense to open up the devices and bypass the AC stuff and connect the DC power directly so skip any inverter circuitry
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@antialiased I understand that. But that's not what the people buying the new battery system are doing.
@blue_collar_audio_guy Your exact power is not a regenerator. It is a "filter" and I hate to say it, may be doing more harm than good for your amp.
Try this once: Plug your amp dirctly into the battery system and the rest of the equipment into the EPS plugged into the wall. Your amp may sound even better.
Jerry
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Not everyone uses inverters, @carlsbad , @sns . I choose @rbertalotto 's solution for phono / pre. No inverter, no bridge rectifier, no filter caps, no filter chokes. It's bad enough for amps, where LC-LC-LC-C is good enough for me - that's a Farad of capacitance and hundreds of pounds of chokes.
DIY forever!
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@carlsbad I was speaking to bypassing AC and going with DC battery power to the equipment. It's an easy way to test dirty vs. clean(er) power by avoiding AC noise, SMPS switching noise, RF noise, grounding loops, etc.
It's just that the weak link now becomes the voltage switching circuit on the battery and it's ability to do its job cleanly.
That's the reason audiophiles go down the rabbit hole of stacking 3 3v batteries together to get the 9volts they need for their DAC,etc. This bypasses the need for that battery switching circuit.
When I say always "better", I mean always cleaner vs going straight to wall (without the power conditioners and additional filters upstream). It's not always better as I myself have chosen the wall w/ conditioning and filtering.
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@carlsbad I have a power regenerator as well. An ExactPower EPDS. The regenerator gets plugged into the battery. The battery is not replacing it. I only run my frontstage through the exactpower. Power amp is plugged into the wall. Perhaps the combination of lithium ion and power regeneration is the secret here I'm not sure. My small battery unit only has one outlet so i can't test plugging the whole frontage directly into the battery itself.
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@carlsbad I think @antialiased means supplying the equipment.
I can only relay our experience with active speakers, working in some really awful environments. AC power on the cord contributes no audible effect to the sound. Where issues exist is interconnection of components. Where we have ran into issues is on a less than ideal balanced I/F. Get that right and issues disappear. I assume single ended connections would have the potential for far more issues.
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When people say "batteries are always better" I don't know if they realize tht battery power is inverted to supply your equipment and the rectified so the quality of the inverter is very important. Cheap inverters used to be total crap. I've seen inverters that actually ouput square waves. I assume there have been recent advances but it seems unlikely that an inverter in a $300 rig is extremely high quality.
I like the comment about output impedence. Indeed that is very important. One reason PS Audio rules the power regenerator business is that their supplies have almost zero output imedence.
My PS Audio PP10 costs 20x as much as the battery/inverter that @blue_collar_audio_guy posted about. If this is being proposed as a less expensive alternative I respect that and totally support it. I often see it proposed as "better than your expensive power regenerator" and I am still skeptical about that. I'd love to have one to compare. I could order one from amazon and return it but that just doesn't seem fair to the seller.
Jerry
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@ghdprentice No I do not have dedicated lines as I rent. I'll work on getting some photos up thanks!
@roadcykler Forgive me, subtle it was not.
@carlsbad I put the unit in the back under my component rack to muffle the sound. I never claimed a totally black background. It sounds better than my ac line at my listening volume and I don't hear the fan.
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Batteries are always cleaner sounding than stuff plugged into a wall. That said, when you’re listening to battery power you’re actually listening the power regulator on a battery. It’s the thing that convert the batteries native voltage to the final output voltage. That’s why one lithium battery might sound different from another.
Batteries are a quick and easy way to get to clean sound, but their inconvenience in terms of maintenance and charging become a chore over the long term.
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How well one of these battery packs performs compared to AC depends on quality of AC supplying system. No conditioning, battery wins, AC somewhat optimized,battery may or may not win, fully optimized AC, AC wins IME. I've looked inside some of these battery packs,pretty low level components, my AC chain far better components.
I've owned two battery powered components, N.E.W DCA66, class A SS amp running off 4 wheelchair batteries which I sold rather recently, Merlin BAM for VSM-MM speakers, runs off 4 9v rechargeable batteries, still own this.
Any future battery power experiments I may run would require high level inverter and big lithium ion batteries.
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Intriguing subject. My understanding is battery "impedance" is the issue. It is possible the inverter has some ps regulation circuits that help deliver lower ps impedance, but I personally wouldn't want all those switching devices near my ps. I wonder how Jeff Rowland designed his battery powered preamps ?
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OP never came back to the thread. I've been skeptical about these for a long time. I remain so. I'd love to plug the oultet of one of these into my PSAudio PP10 and let it analye the input. It has a built in o-scope. Currently my ulitlity power runs about 4-5% thd.
I agree, fan is a non starter. How can you have a "totally black" system with a fan running.
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I still dont understand why we need an inverter at all. Most HiFi equipment runs on DC….get rid of the AC to DC conversion in the components and run everything on DC Lithium batteries…..
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The fan issue makes this a nonstarter for me.
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@thespeakerdude "any better than a medical grade isolation transformer"
Yes, but not a great deal. I have a medical grade isolation transformer running a high quality, low voltage DC power supply for my phono and pre. It sounds good - but the battery supplying supplying +6VDC / 0 / -6VDC sounds better. Smoother, slightly less grain.
I do as the OP does: run the power supply to keep the phono / pre warm, and the battery to listen. But it's close enough that I sometimes forget to change for a while.
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Great news. I’ve pretty noisy power and was wondering about using a battery pack on my sources.
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The three most overused words in all of audiophiledom, it wasn't subtle.
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So what is the difference between this and an APC UPS?
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OP,
Thanks for your comments. Very interesting. It would also be great to see your system. There is a place under your used ID for photos. Did you have direct lines?
I have noticed that better audio equipment has more technology and space dedicated to power supplies. My streamer has a battery that powers the audio circuits when playing… and it shows.
Thanks again.
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I ran several pieces of streaming network devices and dac on lithium ion battery pack (Rockpals) for a time. Initially, and over a bit longer term thought I preferred the battery to conditioned AC, but over long term felt like I was missing something, couldn't put my finger on it. So back to AC conditioned power, discovered drive, impact were the missing ingredients. Based on my experience and others, I suspect the inverters in these units is the weak link. There is thread here speaking to various battery and inverter implementation, consensus is inverter critical to optimal battery power supplies for audio systems.
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I use solar power. 100% virgin power, not recycled stuff. No carbon atoms plugging up my power lines and power supplies. Quadruple filtered SMPS and true sinewave. Plenty of power in reserve, even with the Tesla plugged in.
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Good to hear success on your system. I have a solar battery backup outlet using a quality pure sine wave inverter and 2 Agm 100WH batteries. I used a quality 14ga extension cord to my audio power conditioner. It sounded noticeably different. Cleaner, crisper, brighter but it felt to clean and just wasn’t as enjoyable as my house AC. I have since moved on. I live in a suburban neighborhood and my power is very consistent, stable and I think cleaner than many. My take away is battery power isn’t for all and is really somewhat dependent on the quality of you house AC.
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What are you using for an inverter. It is the inverter that determines the quality of your power, not the battery.
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Your experience basically means that you had some pretty dirty power.
lots of folks (audiophiles) that live in New York City (and other high density cities or neighborhoods ) tend to use balance power supplies (or batteries) because of dirty AC lines, being shared by dozens of other residents in high density buildings and such
ignore the posters whom generalize and speak in absolutes, with comments like “you don’t need batteries or balanced power supplies”
like all else in audio, there are no absolutes
reminds me of another audio site, where they’re wrapped around the axle of measurements, where they tested a balanced power supply/conditioner, (using clean power) saying it made no measurable difference lolololololol
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