ricevs,
When saying something is better, we should be more specific. In general, sonic purity and accuracy is associated with more extended HF and tighter bass, among other things. But the tighter bass is also less full. If the Goal Zero is more accurate than wall AC by removing distortion, I suspect that HF are more extended and open, while the bass is tighter and less full compared to the wall AC. Is that what you hear? How does the Amperetime/Giandel system compare to the Goal Zero specifically for HF and bass accuracy?
I also look forward to your Bluetti/Goal Zero comparison.
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Thanks. So I can take a ground wire and stick it into the 3rd pin in an unused outlet on a power strip? Are there good ground wire ends with a thick single plug for a secure connection into the 3rd pin?
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richopp,
I didn't see the story in the Palm Beach Post. Which section is it in?
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ricevs,
For an introductory battery/inverter system without the Puritan filter, how about the Giandel 5000 inverter with only ONE Amperetime 200 amp-hr battery? You say the larger inverter is better than the smaller 2000 inverter, not only for generating more power, but also for lower distortion. Obviously I would be limited to half the power capabilities of the larger inverter by using 1 battery instead of 2, but I first want to establish the sonic qualities of the battery + Giandel 5000 alone, which I could do at medium power and for shorter periods of time. If I confirm what your friend has found, I could feed the inverter into my Shunyata Denali 6000 which has greatly improved my sound on its own. Then of course, I could add the 2nd battery for full capability. Basic cost of two 200 amp-hr batteries--$1600, plus Giandel 5000 inverter--$900, plus 40A battery charger--$250, plus OFC battery cables--$30. Total--$2780. Save $800 with just one battery--$1980 to get started, for the same quality sound but with half the power capability? Still, similar power capabilities as the Stromtank 2500!
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sbayne,
Thanks for your sonic impressions of your Bluetti AC200MAX. Greater clarity, resolution, HF extension in addition to more open soundstage? Are you using power amps with it, as well as your front end? If so, did you find total system benefits greater than just using the Bluetti with the low powered front end? Are the benefits at least as great as getting a more transparent preamp or power amp?
Hobotech's factual info is useful, but he doesn't describe audiophile benefits.
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sbayne, thanks.
tksteingraber, thanks for sharing your great results with the Powerbright. Which and how much battery storage (amp hr) are you using with your unit? I looked on their site, clicked on the user manual for their lower quality modified sine wave inverters. It seems that even lower battery power can still be used with any inverter, although the inverter will not provide as much time of use. The dimensions and weight of the Powerbright modified sine wave inverters resemble the pure sine wave inverters of Giandel. Of course, your pure sine wave inverter is stated to produce the purest quality from Powerbright.
Perhaps the most attractive package is from Giandel, with their 5000 watt hr pure sine wave inverter, fed by two Amperetime 200 amp hr batteries, for $2800. Next attractive is to save $800 and get one Amperetime battery. See the pictures from ricevs' site, tweakaudio. The advantage of Powerbright is their east coast location with phone number.
Right now I first have to figure out how to ground the inverter from my 3rd floor apartment. Giandel says grounding is essential for safety reasons.
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ricevs,
Here is an excerpt from your post of 8/5.
"All inverters put out noise and distortion.....that is why they will all sound different from each other and will benefit from further (pure filtering) . The Stromtank and the Exeltech inverters are rated at less than 2% distortion....most of the others like the Giandel are rated at less than 3% distortion. This is not .0001 percent distortion like a Benchmark amp or Purifi amp measures. Distortion.....means noise.....I would think a larger inverter would sound better......probably lower output impedance and bigger power supply."
It's true you never said the Giandel 5000 sounds better than the 2000, but you said that a larger inverter would sound better due to lower output impedance and bigger power supply. The safest thing to do is trust your friend's great results with the larger Giandel. BTW, the Amperetime batteries can't be returned for a refund merely because you don't like the sound of them. You have to take them to an approved technician who will document that there is a defect.
The Giandel 5000 plus 2 Amperetime batteries and cables is merely a $2800 experiment. Well worth doing, thanks to your friend's experience.
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theaudioamp,
I'll accept your statement that inverters are basically switch mode power supplies. Still, any piece of electronics has a "sound." Nobody understands what distortion measurements correlate with a particular sound. Ricevs has a longstanding business as a modifier of electronics. He has determined that different materials in wires have different sounds. If you don't want to believe his claims, be aware that there are several of his customers I have known personally who vouch for his claims by being pleased with his mods.
Just because you may not find reliable measurements that explain sonic differences, understand that the educated ear is THE best measurement tool of all, in terms of sonic evaluation. Technicians are still in the dark ages of understanding the human hearing mechanism.
A good medical doctor such as myself accepts the claims of patients when they say that a certain drug causes side effects, even if there are no published academic studies confirming patient claims. A bad doctor is one who denies the validity of patient claims just because there are no studies in prestigious medical journals. Well, I've got news for you--a lot of journals contain false studies that are driven by medico-political agendas. A sincere doctor often can't get his article published because it conflicts with the agenda and business interests of the prestigious journal.
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theaudioamp,
Your entire lengthy post of 8/8 11 PM is FALSE. In particular,
"No, any piece of equipment does not have a sound. This is Philelore and is not true."
"And I personally know lots of people who believe stuff that is absolutely not true, but that does not make them or the large amount of people who believe the same thing correct."
How do you determine the TRUTH of anything? We are talking about whether a piece of equipment, even a single wire has a sound signature. Inductive reasoning starts with observation, in this case listening under controlled conditions. Most audiophiles have repeatedly heard differences in their homes. They wouldn't spend money and keep their components if they didn't hear differences. They don't care whether measurements corroborate their sonic evaluations. Their repeated listening evaluations summate into the TRUTH that there are subjective differences when the measurement people cannot find technical answers.
However, the measurement people start from a stubborn bias that measurement tells the story. They allow their bias to obliterate any listening differences they may hear. You went into Jay's two videos with a bias to confirm your belief that there are no differences between the two Stromtanks. Later, you admitted that there are differences and you heard them, but YT flaws could not allow you to draw the obvious conclusions by everyone else who listened and found the S2500 was far superior.
Next point. You said, "A good medical doctor will listen, but they will also try to understand enough about the drug to know whether the claimed side effect is remotely possible because not all side effects will be possible." This shows how little you know about clinical practice. The typical objectivist academic doctor thinks he knows what is possible or impossible, but he bases his beliefs on published studies in academic journals. If a patient tells him something that he has not read in journals, he says there is no evidence for the patient's claim. TOTALLY WRONG. There IS evidence, albeit unpublished, but the dumb doctor is not open minded enough to listen to his patient. The doctor thinks he knows it all, but sometimes the patient knows better. Many excellent clinicians I admire write dedications in their books to patients who have taught them things, and they are grateful to their patients for that.
My conclusion is that either your listening skills are poor, OR more likely you have an agenda bias to interfere with your good hearing ability if it actually is intact. More importantly, you are not open minded enough to trust the ears of people who know there are differences. These differences are not published in academic engineering journals with double blind studies. You claim that only double blind experiments are valid. That shows you have the mindset of that dumb doctor.
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Thanks, sbayne. I am confused by the turn on procedure in the Giandel 5000 user manual. It says to turn on your electronics first, and then the inverter. But since the electronics are plugged into the inverter, when the latter is still off, the electronics wouldn't turn on. The Giandel has a stepped slow startup, maybe to avoid surges. With my Shunyata Denali conditioner, I keep it on all the time. My EQ (like a preamp) is always on, and I just turn on the CD player and Mytek Brooklyn power amp. The amp has its own safe turn on mechanism, so there are no surges.
So I believe I could turn on the inverter first, wait a minute until it stabllizes, then turn on my CD player and power amp. Essentially, turning on the inverter activates its AC outputs, but there is no current flow until the electronics are turned on. There shouldn't be a need to have the inverter provide 2-3 times your power needs if I am correct.
Ricevs, am I correct? What is the turn on procedure your friend follows with his Giandel 5000?
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Ricevs,
You are absolutely medically correct about the importance of LOVE from your cardiologist. It is important to have a technically competent cardiologist who has the needed experience in doing catheterizations, stents, but if you don't like his bedside manner that is going to impair your optimal recovery. But a technically inexperienced medical student with plenty of love will not offer you the best prospects. We need both technical competence and emotional support from the doctor.
We are only beginning to scientifically understand the mechanisms whereby emotional support produces better healing. Stress reduction is important for cancer prognosis. The most common stress-related condition, insomnia is mainly due to stress. Stress impairs the immune system and many biochemical mechanisms. A spouse who just lost her husband dies soon after, from the extreme grief which impairs her body in numerous ways. The typical technician-only person thinks he can fix his body just by understanding the known scientific factors. He won't understand the scientific correlates of emotions for 500 years, if ever. So he scoffs at emotional factors and claims that love doesn't cure cancer. He is wrong, But most practical people know that the emotions are important even if they don't understand the technical basis for emotions. The analogy with audio excellence is that careful and intelligent listening is employed in addition to technical analysis to get the best sound. We don't understand all technical factors, but we have better sound than the technician who refuses to accept the evidence from his ears that something that sounds better may have worse specs.
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sns,
Good points. From the international phone access code of 86, Giandel comes from Hong Kong. I guess your Rockpal is the battery, so your procedure sounds logical.
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Ricevs,
Makes sense, thanks. If the inverter is on all the time, but all the electronics plugged into it are off, then there is no current draw from the inverter. So the batteries won't get drained. But if the low power electronics like preamp and sources are on all the time, then the batteries will drain at a slow but significant rate. If you want to keep the low level electronics on all the time, then it seems that the most economical procedure is to keep the inverter off when not listening, then turn it on first, and then the power amp. Does the battery charger get warm/hot when running the majority of the time?
Correct?
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ricevs,
Thanks for the comforting words. However, the low level components could draw 1 (idle)-100 watts (loud music). Without the battery charger, after 24 hours the battery would lose 24-2400 watt hours, with a dead battery unable to be recharged. So it makes sense to run the battery charger all the time when not listening, IF you keep your low level components on.
There is a question of what strategy preserves battery life the longest. Suppose the battery has 4000 cycles of life. If the cycle is prolonged by charging less frequently, then the life is prolonged. But if the battery is constantly being recharged, the short cycles accumulate fast. With cars, the alternator constantly recharges the battery, and the battery only lasts a relatively few years. We are hoping these big batteries in our inverter system last longer than car batteries, so what is the best battery charging strategy? I think I read that Goal Zero advises letting the battery run down a little, but obviously not to a very low level.
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Good points. I heard that hybrid car battery manufacturers are looking to replace lithium batteries which can overheat with some sort of new "solid state" technology I don’t know much about.
How hot do your friend's dual Amperetime batteries get?
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ricevs,
I don't see the point of adding as much battery power as you like. For example, your friend uses two Amperetime 200 amp-hr batteries. At 12V, this is 4800 watt-hr if the batteries are fully charged. His Giandel inverter is 5000 watt-hr continuous or 10,000 burst. So I don't know why Giandel recommends minimum battery of 500 amp-hr, when 400 amp-hr should be enough.
More batteries means more charging time required. To begin, my EQ and CD player each draw 20W, so only 40W-hr is required from the battery for 1 hour of daily listening. A single A-time battery with 2400 W-hr will last me 60 days until it is drained. Only monthly recharging should be OK. This alone should let me know how much benefit there is with the battery + inverter at a minimal cost. If results are good, I'll add my Mytek Brooklyn power amp. On peaks, it needs 1000W, but for routine listening to my classical music which most of the time uses only a few watts, I still estimate that recharging every few weeks will be fine.
I suspect that the purity benefits of battery-inverters are mainly at low SPL's. At loud levels, sbayne didn't even hear the fan coming on, but heard the fan only at low levels.
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goofyfoot,
Just read the posts by ricevs. Look at his website, tweakaudio. Click on the golden inverter button. He notes his experience with Goal Zero, and his friend's better results with Amperetime batteries and battery charger, Giandel inverter.
What were your findings comparing your ASR amp with and without the battery?
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mijostyn,
There are certain audiophile buzzwords that are nebulous concepts with uncertain musical meaning. "Noise" and "noise floor" are examples. As a musician and music lover first, and audiophile last, I am interested in tone, resolution, clarity, detail. I don't listen for "noise." In fact, some of the best classical recordings are from late 1950's Mercury Living Presence which have lots of hiss. Still, the detail of these recordings is outstanding. The issue we are interested in here with all these batteries/inverters is whether there is more purity and resolution from this approach to eliminating distortion. That is why everyone should be interested in trying and learning the firsthand truth about these batteries/inverters. Since you have excellent electrostatics which have more purity and resolution than all dynamic speakers, you have the most to gain. Me too, with my Audiostatic 240 electrostatics with the Enigmacoustics Sopranino tweeters in parallel.
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ricevs,
I agree with much of what you just said. My main question was about the bass from the Goal Zero. Comparing to wall AC, Is it looser and fuller, in other words quantitatively greater but qualitatively worse as with old school tube amps? Is it tighter but quantitatively less? I assume you found that aside from the bass, the Goal Zero is more accurate in midrange/HF?
Still, noise reduction easily occurs when you roll off HF. With crude Dolby noise reduction, I remember HF hiss was nearly eliminated this way, but information in the rest of the range was severely destroyed, creating lifeless sound. The sonic effect is its own type of distortion. So noise is not synonymous with distortion.
We want LIFE to all the instruments. For wind instruments, you want to hear the nice tone, but also the mechanical sounds such as keys, valves, spitting. Some people seek to get rid of these extraneous "noisy" sounds, but all these sounds are part of the complete sound of the instrument and must be revealed although not exaggerated.
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Actually, live unamplified bass in the appropriately sized room or hall is delightful because of the many harmonic overtones which go up to HF. Take a French horn which has bass, although not as deep as a tuba. James Boyk has an essay called "Life above 20 kHz" or something like that. He showed that the French horn has significant energy up to 9 kHz. When you hear the French horn up close, it has tightness of bass, as well as midrange/HF. Bass by itself isn't tight, but the perceived tightness is from the much higher freq overtones integrated into the total sound of the instrument.
Bass instruments in various sized rooms have different tonal balances. The large piano in a small room sounds awful, because the walls reinforce the bass more than higher freq, creating a bass dominant heavy sound. The same piano on a large concert stage sounds lighter in tonal balance, with less perceived bass than in the small room.
The Goal Zero 400 is a special case where the high impedance is another factor to its detriment of bass. Perhaps larger inverters with lower output impedance is a big factor in explaining their superior sound. But impedance is only one factor. We can look up the impedance of the larger Yeti 3000, and compare to Giandel 2200 and 5000. There are probably other factors responsible for the superior sound of the Giandels, and whether the G 5000 is superior to the G 2200. Any of these units are a tiny fraction of the Stromtanks, so that's why I am going for the G 5000 which your friend vouches for.
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ricevs,
Too many variables between the compromised Bluetti AC200P and the Goal Zero Yeti 400 with its woodblocks and PPT. I thought you were using the Yeti with your front end only, not with power amps. The most meaningful A/B you can do is between your Yeti 400 and your friend's Amperetime/Giandel, both used only on his front end. Your Yeti 400 can't handle the power amps, unfortunately. But maybe you remember the Yeti 3000 which can handle the entire system, and how it compared to the A-time/Giandel in your friend's system. How did the Yeti 3000 and A-time/Giandel compare for just the front end, and the whole system, for bass and the other sonic aspects?
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ricevs,
I still don’t know what you mean when you say the Amperetime/Giandel is "better" than the Yeti and Ecoflow. To me, "better" means more clarity/resolution in the entire freq range, but to euphonically oriented listeners, "better" means warmer and rolled off, etc. If you say the Goal Zero sounds a little soft compared to the Bluetti you tried, I would probably prefer the Bluetti. You say the Bluetti is "zippy" compared to the Goal Zero, but Bluetti owners here have not found them to be "zippy." More advanced Bluetti options put them in a similar price range as A-time/Giandel. Did your friend A/B these Bluetti's to his present A-time/Giandel?
This discussion is not at all like a typical discussion coming from Jay, where he claims that expensive invariably means better. We are out to find battery/inverter solutions at 5-10% of the price of the Stromtank 5000, the only S-tank unit which can handle an entire high power system. If Tom Lyle found the Goal Zero Yeti 400 sounded identical to the Stromtank 2500, that implies that the S2500 is a little soft, like the Yeti 400. Is the A-time/Giandel more like the Bluetti for resolution at all freq?
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ricevs,
Thanks for links to Oeno's comments. He has good musical insights and describes the benefits of his Giandel system in a useful way.
You will want to get a Giandel for yourself, maybe a smaller 2200 if that's what you can afford. Go to Oeno's place, and A/B it with his Giandel 5000, using his same batteries. Then put Wonder caps on yours, and you both can listen and evaluate. But it might be risky to take his 5000 and modify it, since he is very happy at present, and there is a chance that he has slightly different sonic tastes than you.
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ricevs,
Please just answer my simple questions. I know how to interpret your direct answers. If you tell me that the Giandel is a soft sound like the Yeti, I won't waste even $2K trying it out. I am perfectly happy with my present system not to bother with the extra considerable floor space requirements of batteries/inverter.
Don't school me on life, experience, etc. My musical experience and knowledge exceed anyone you have ever met in your long life. I respect your technical knowledge, so just answer my questions, please.
I'll read Oeno's account on WBF, thanks.
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I only mentioned that you get the G 2200 so you can learn firsthand what the benefits of your mods (Wonder Caps and possible other tricks you have) would be for the G 2200. If Oeno is intrigued with your mods, he might be interested in your mods for his G 5000.
I have plenty of money, but am prudent because high end audio is a minefield of many ways to financial ruin. Even after careful research, it still is a minefield unless you listen for yourself through a friend with mutual interests. You listen in each others' systems, and he lets you borrow an item for a week so you finally learn the truth in your own system.
Don't count on money back guarantees from a company on the other side of the world. I still can't tell the country of manufacture for Giandel. It is a tough economy with many delays due to supply chain disruptions. I go into this project with the possible outcome that I lose all money spent, at best 50% assuming someone from this tiny audience will buy my stuff, but then he will know that I don't like it. I can afford to lose $1-3K on all this. So I get the best known system (A-time/Giandel 5000) at this point.
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ricevs,
Here's a perspective on how stupid audio expenditures can be. Is $2K a trivial amount of money for an audio item that you cannot try before you buy? NO. If you buy it after your own listening for a week when you are working with a reputable local dealer, and you like the improvement in the sound, then it is worth every penny, even if you spent $10K.
But $1K buys a medium intensity PEMF (pulsed electromagnetic field) unit which can be used for numerous health problems. $10K buys a powerful PEMF unit which can heal major neurological diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, chronic fatigue, cardiac disease, prostate enlargement and others for which mainstream medicine merely uses drugs and invasive procedures. Since I know you are interested in alternative health methods, I think you will be interested in this. Read the writings of Dr. William Pawluk, a major expert in this field. Look at his site drpawluk (dot) com.
Wanna be happy? That comes from achieving the best health and well being possible, which is much more valuable than fleeting audiophile satisfaction. Most sane people who have good but not perfect health are happy, but many audiophiles who are seeking perfection are never happy. You can have both, and it is necessary to have a perspective on what is really important so you can justify whatever money you spend on both pursuits.
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The central and unknown issue is what types of distortions are coming from inverters. They are substantial, a lot higher than from filtered and grounded power. Using a Puritan or other filter after the inverter makes sense for a one-two punch. So we are back to the primitive state of wondering why there may be natural aspects of tube electronics yet with their much higher distortion measurements vs SS. Back to listening.
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Shifting gears, I want to ask the Bluetti or other battery/inverter owners whether they tried these units on complete systems including power amps, as well as just for the low power front end components. My theory is that the AC powerline distortions are relatively small compared to the main signal, and they would be a much higher fraction for low power components. It is likely that the entire system would benefit, but my guess is that most of the benefits would be just using the low powered components on the inverter.
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A similar situation is if you keep electronics on all the time, or even on standby all the time. Either the battery gets depleted faster because most of the time you are not listening, or you have to keep the battery charger going all the time. Then for critical listening, disconnect the battery charger. Then after listening is done, reconnect the battery charger. Lots of things to do and undo, only worth it if the sound of the battery/inverter is MUCH better. So far, I have not heard wild exclamations of delight from the Bluetti users, just vague descriptions of "blacker backgrounds" etc. The only wild exclamations are from ricevs' friend Oeno with the Giandel 5000 inverter. I would like to hear confirmations from other people who have tried the Giandel.
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I wonder if the last deleted post was a response to me. If so, hopefully it can be restated in acceptable language.
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sirnui,
Did you connect your Shunyata to the single 30A RV output of the Ecoflow, and then your components to the multiple outlets of the Shunyata? As I understand it, this is the analogous sequence used by ricevs’ friend Oeno, with the Giandel supplying the pure AC to the Puritan filter, and the components being driven by the Puritan filter. The Giandel is like the Ecoflow, and the Puritan is like the Shunyata.
Thanks for your report. I look forward to your Amperetime=>Giandel=>Shunyata experience. I like my Shunyata Denali 6000 alone, which extends HF in particular, but also tightens the lower freq.
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Terrific! I had thought the Giandel just has standard 15A outlets. I doubt that a 30A outlet would be better for sound quality, although it will enable higher power demands. Adapters can degrade the sound, so plugging the Puritan with the Ultimate power cable directly into the 15A outlet of the Giandel should be the purest way. I would be incorrect if the Ultimate cable already has a 30A male connector.
My Shunyata 6000 is plugged into the 15A wall outlet, will much more clarity and HF extension than no Shunyata. I am not interested in high power. Most of my music only requires low power, with occasional peaks. Clarity and resolution are appreciated mainly at low power. That's why high quality class AB amps offer class A operation at low power, and then AB when high power is required. The ear is most discriminating at low power.
In any case, you can try the 15A and the 30A outlets on the Giandel, and see if there is a difference.
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I looked again at the Giandel site, and I see four standard 15A outlets, plus a hard wire connection for high power appliances, to the right of the four outlets. I don't know if you are planning to use this special connection, but it would be interesting if you do, to compare the sound of that to one of the 15A outlets. With your low total power draw at 220W max, any of the 15A outlets should be enough.
Also, they said that the Giandel is overbuilt with special EMF filtering. BINGO, that alone may explain the sonic superiority of the Giandel as heard by Oeno. I await your exciting experiments.
My concern is that Giandel advises to turn it off when not in use. I don't know why. This would be a problem with amps that need continuous low power for standby. The manual cautions that if the battery voltage drops below 9.5, the inverter will shut down. That doesn't leave much room for the draining battery starting at 12.6V, so you would have to keep the battery charger running all the time, disconnecting the charger for critical listening. Ricevs says the sound is not as high quality unless you disconnect the battery charging cables. See what you find if you keep the charging cables connected all the time, which would be convenient.
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sirnui,
I have been worried about you. Did you get a severe shock from connecting the battery to the Giandel? Did the sparks cause a fire?
Maybe you are not happy with the Amperetime/Giandel, or else you would have reported enthusiastically by now.
I hope all is well.
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Thanks. How do you apply and then remove the 25 watt resistor when connecting the battery with the Giandel? Which smart plug do you use for recharging the battery, and how?
Giandel actually recommends 500 Ah of batteries for the 5000. However, your system is only 220W, the present 200 Ah battery at 12.6V should last about 10 hours for continuous full power music at maximum output. For most music, the average power requirement would be much less, so you would get probably 40+ hours of continuous music. If you listen 1-2 hours/day, I would think that the single 200Ah battery should be enough for several weeks without needing a recharge.
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chowkwan,
"A 1/2" A80 + 468 = live." I'm guessing you mean the Studer A80. What's the 468? Of course the source is the most important factor in achieving live high fidelity. Aside from that, how do you achieve clean power? Which NBS power cords?
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