John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi folks,

I was wondering if any of you had heard of this company that offers a kit for building your own balanced power suppply.

http://www.transcendentsound.com/power_supply.htm

The price is right (only $369), but the unit is only rated for 8 amps.

In my tiny little studio, all my gear is only drawing a combined 600 watts. If I've done my math right, this box should be good for 960 watts.

Question: Has anybody heard of, built, or tested this thing?

Thanks,

Jed

Jed, sorry but this is the first I'd seen of that unit; if you're brave, maybe build one and give us a before and after report on noise?? Steve

Okay, whats the difference between balanced power, and power provided through an isolation transformer?

I must admit that when it comes to balanced power I'm kindof a non beleiver. Seems like a band aid solution, where proper grounding is the real answer. Personally, I'll probably just by an iso transformer and keep it kicking around for those times when I've got an old amp in house that just won't play nice, but I don't see many other needs for balanced power.

Cheers,

Kris

Isolation transformers aren't center-tapped and don't provide two out-of-phase 60 volt legs with a center ground - balanced power transformers do.

The principle is basically the same as for balanced audio lines; any noise on the AC line gets inverted and canceled by being equal amplitude and opposite polarity. Balanced power is NOT a bandaid, nor will it replace good grounding practice; it's just the next step. Whether you take that step would depend on budget, level of your existing gear, including whether you have transparent enough converters in your digital chain to hear a 12 dB improvement in S/N ratio or not, etc -

There are some good white papers on the subject at equitech's site, along with some before/after data -

http://www.equitech.com/support/support.html

Enjoy... Steve