Does anyone have any experience of the recent generation of mains voltage optimisers and their possible effect on audio equipment sound quality? They reduce and regulate mains voltage to about 220v and employ some filtering of harmonics and noise too. I realise a lower voltage will cause power output reduction in some instances and some other equipment may not function properly. I'm more interested in issues of sound quality.
Cheers
Matt
Cheers
Matt
No idea on SQ, but these things are only software-controlled-switched buck transformers as I under stand them. Note the tiny physical size for the power nominally handled. They all go to bypass mode for loads past 10A (UK, 240VAC units in series with domestic feeds of min. 80A, usu. 100A capacity)
I think the idea is a nonsense. Anything with an SMPS is effectively a constant-power device, most other major home peak loads are inductive to some extent (refirgerators/freezers/wash machines) and having done the maths on what remains in typical homes I fail to see where even a fraction of the claimed savings will come from for a nominal supply voltage reduction of 10Vac (for non-UK members here: that's on a nominal, but generally very closely-regulated 240Vac Mains supply*)
I've got these things filed next to 'green plugs'... my EE colleagues agree generally.
* Note, legal supply of the UK Domestic mains supply is 240VAc +6 - 10%, i.e. 216-253VAC, to cover harmonization with the nominal EU 230VAC standard and given tolerances.
In practice, since UK housing is dense and electrical supply uses large 200-500KW+ rated small-neighbourhood substations with massive transformers serving ~ 50-100homes with diversity, in my towncentre location I've seen a range of 237.5-241.5VAC at the wall - when watched -over a 10 year average. That's well within 1% regulation. Oh, and only one outage, of c.30mins.
I think the idea is a nonsense. Anything with an SMPS is effectively a constant-power device, most other major home peak loads are inductive to some extent (refirgerators/freezers/wash machines) and having done the maths on what remains in typical homes I fail to see where even a fraction of the claimed savings will come from for a nominal supply voltage reduction of 10Vac (for non-UK members here: that's on a nominal, but generally very closely-regulated 240Vac Mains supply*)
I've got these things filed next to 'green plugs'... my EE colleagues agree generally.
* Note, legal supply of the UK Domestic mains supply is 240VAc +6 - 10%, i.e. 216-253VAC, to cover harmonization with the nominal EU 230VAC standard and given tolerances.
In practice, since UK housing is dense and electrical supply uses large 200-500KW+ rated small-neighbourhood substations with massive transformers serving ~ 50-100homes with diversity, in my towncentre location I've seen a range of 237.5-241.5VAC at the wall - when watched -over a 10 year average. That's well within 1% regulation. Oh, and only one outage, of c.30mins.
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Just to be clear - the ones I've seen are passive, using a simple/wound 'buck' transformer approach to knock maybe 5% or so off the supply voltage (often adjustable by tap switching, too) - so an essentially a passive, noiseless approach.
By switching I mean only this whole scheme is bypassed by a relay when higher currents are required, typically over 10 -16A (which in the scheme of things is a small percentage of the time)
It is an approach that maybe makes sense if 90% of the time the draw is very -small-power vampires composed of 'linear'/ resistive loads. I'm just not sure that's representative of real-world household use.
By switching I mean only this whole scheme is bypassed by a relay when higher currents are required, typically over 10 -16A (which in the scheme of things is a small percentage of the time)
It is an approach that maybe makes sense if 90% of the time the draw is very -small-power vampires composed of 'linear'/ resistive loads. I'm just not sure that's representative of real-world household use.
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