Anyone listened to Li-ion batteries?

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Hello :)

I may shortly be using Li-ion batteries for an audio project of mine so would be interested in hearing if any of you had compared the different Li-ion battery types - i.e. what they sound like (not the technical aspects)? And also if you had compared their sound to SLA batteries?

Looking forward to any insights :)

Jesper
 
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Hi Marce,

Oh - my guess is that they do. Like (most) all other components they are not linear and in my experience that leads them to have sonic "qualities" or characteristics. Also, although they supply DC they are part of an AC circuitry (sound) so will also respond to AC signals.

However, I'm not that interested in starting a thread about "whether or not" they have sonic qualities - more curious as to if someone have listened to them.

Thanks,

Jesper
 
Stop guessing, Marce is correct.
The only time you might have an effect is if your battery is in some way faulty or exhausted. |Then the equivalent series resistance causes the output to fall and if you have no decoupling (an amp fault) then you could have effected performance.
Regards
Henry
 
As I said there is a published report on battery noise.
It is linked in this Forum.
There may be other reports.

I do recall that different battery types gave very different noise results. Some obviously good candidates turned out to be quite bad in comparison to quieter types.

Yes Qusp quite old, thanks for adding a possible ref.
We could do with adding in more battery types.
 
no worries, yep TNT and ALW, neither that relevant today and one from a site that sells regulators.

that would be great if some more modern types with some more modern test gear could be done.

the noise isnt really constant as you can see at least for those types, like a capacitor charging and discharging with AC. they seem to let out a burst, the chemical charge recovers and lets out another burst
 
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I remember that Jean Hiraga of the magasine L'Audiophile did some measurements on the noise floor in relation to his amplifier "Le Monstre" which was driven by two car batteries (Lead Acid but not sealed). If I remember correctly the noise floor was about -144 dBs (relative to maybe 1V?).

Yesterday I found some impedance & phase measurements on SLA batteries:

http://www.telepower.com.au/INT95b.PDF

The interesting part (to me :)) is e.g. table 1 but also the impedance curves. And not least that listening tests carried out by someone in whose ears I trust indicate that same value SLAs sound different (12V, 7AH).

So since e.g. LiFePO4 batteries may be more convenient to me (smaller, less polluting) it would be very interesting to me if someone had listened to the batteries.

Greetings,

Jesper
 
TNT and ALW, neither that relevant today....
Maybe not, but they do put to rest the idea that batteries are "perfect", and give some ideas how to test.

Some interesting quotes:

Re NiCads:
there is a constant noise floor, interspersed with sudden transients and slow recovery afterwards

Re Lead-acid:
The resistive load represent about a 35mA current drain - it gets worse with increasing load current. Even more inportant the noise doesn't stop when a heavy load is removed, it takes seconds to settle, presumably due to the chemical reaction going on inside the cell.

Bear in mind these are resistive load conditions i.e. easy, when placed under a dynamic load (plots to come at a later date) things look much worse.

Particularly bad is that the voltage output bears no relation to A.C. load, and produces other noise products that are not remotely related to the load it sees.
 
Here is a typical answer with guys guessing. Andrew T and I have had our differences in the past but on this occasion I agree with him.

THINK of the battery as being the DC source. Only then does it become as subjective as all the variants of PSU chips, the LM78XX series against the LM337 against the SALAS Shunt Reg. There will of course be differences.

How much difference is what the OP is about.

I do however agree that if a PA cannot cope with the noise of DC power supply, it should be redesigned, unless of course it is a medical or instrumental application.

various batteries will have different impedances which will affect audio circuits. It is unlikely that noise will be the issue here.
 
I would guess that lead acid would sound heavy and authoritative, but a little plodding and over-solid. Difficult to get going on cold mornings.

A lithium battery would sound hot, with a tendency to over-fizziness.

Nickel metal hydride would sound very nimble.

LiIon would be stout-hearted with a roaring bass.

A mercury battery would give rise to a sound that was slippery like, ooh, quicksilver.

A voltaic pile wouldn't sound very nice at all.
 
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