I’ll take the credit for telling @vonhelmholtz about how I took my whole system off the grid and implementing a battery supply. I got the idea myself from @ricevs replying to an inquiry of mine on GAN amps (thank you, Ric!), which led me to another thread on this forum of Class D enthusiasts who have gone off the grid.
My biggest hesitations at first were simply the risks of fire, leakage, or shock, and the pains of having to manage and charge the battery given that I have a high powered system that isn’t efficient like Class D. Once I got it set up, though, it’s been pretty easy to manage. Never once did I worry about the noise from the inverter, but I chose the Giandel 2000W model as I learned that most noise seems to occur if you utilize more than 40% of the power draw and fans kick in, etc.
That said, I am using both a Synergistic Research PowerCell SX conditioner, from which everything including my amps are plugged into the inverter, as well as one of their UEF AC Performance Enhancers, which is plugged in to the second AC output of the Giandel. As an authorized SR customer since 2014 dealer since 2023, I’ve found their power and grounding solutions to be exceptional and likely further reduce any noise generated from the inverter.
What I will say is this. Not only do I have dedicated lines, but I run those lines starting with a quality breaker. The cabling I’m using is $50/ft DH Labs Red Wave cabling, which is 10AWG of over 1,300 fine silver coated pure copper with advanced noise rejection properties, and high grade outlets. It was quite expensive to put in place, yet once I got the battery and inverter system in place, the improvement was immediately notable at a fairly dramatic level. Added blackness resulting in sonic clarity, snap, and definition of decay were the first attributes that captured my attention, but the soundstage also shifted and became wider and more spacious. I have demoed the differences for clients that come over as it’s easy to shut down the inverter, replug my system into the dedicated line, and start everything back up.
As another Audiogoner who visited me this past weekend stated, there was also no shortage of current considering my whole system was plugged into the inverter. He has asked for the shopping list of the system I built, and I told him I would update him based on the learnings Gary implements in his build. I like some of Gary’s directions on trickle charging and monitoring, which I will likely add to mine as my charger is pretty loud and annoying when in use.
I do keep the charger connected to the batteries at all times, but there is a hard switch to turn the charger off when not in use.
The cost of entry was pretty low considering what I spend on my reference system, so I thought the experiment was worth trying. At worst case, I could use the system for something not audio related, say when I am ready to install some solar panels and have backup reserves for when power goes out.