AV Rant #254: Unicorn
Check out the video below to get the skinny on Quantum Levitation. It is AWESOME. Evan has a problem with Spotify, as does Tom and Liz. Liz thinks salt is cool – not for the same reason Tom does. Vdio – What is it other than a stupid name? Tom talks about a few high end offerings from Thiel and Induction Dynamics which leads Liz to believe that “high end” is not the right term for these companies. A suggestion for Mythbusters. Liz’s new favorite TV show. This week’s Soup-to-Nuts is courtesy of a few listener questions. Simon has a question about battery backups. Evan figured out his optical problem, and Jason has a question about class H amps (here is some homework). Thanks for listening and don’t forget to vote for us at Podcast Alley! To see our (mostly) complete collection of show videos, click here. Download Tom’s FREE ebook Bob Moore: No Hero which is pretty much available everywhere. Friend Tom and Liz on Google+ to join in on one of our hangouts.
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High-END?
More like High-SPEND, amiright?
bah-dum…*splash
Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week. Remember to tip your waitress.
S’far as I’ve ever known, the only issue with certain battery backup power protectors is that there is a slight delay between the time when the power cuts out and the battery cuts in. It’s a matter of milliseconds, which is fine for a computer and will – at worst – make a display flicker slightly, but for some audio amps, it could cause a “thump”, which I think might be where some of the concerns of damage come from.
So long as the battery cuts in quickly enough, you get no interruption in the supply of power. APC’s battery backups, even the ones that are aimed at computer use, don’t seem to have any issues in terms of a delay. I’ve never had even the slightest flicker with my J15 – which is, of course, part of the APC AV line that is meant for Audio/Video equipment. But I also have one of their very inexpensive Back-UPS ES units, which has also been completely instantaneous and never produced any sign of a flicker or delay.
If all you want is enough time to power down your gear safely, I can highly recommend the APC Back-UPS ES units. You won’t be able to finish watching your movie or run your DVR for 2-3 hours the way the big J and S-Type APC AV units can, but you can certainly buy yourself several minutes to safely shut down your projector and other gear for very little money. I have the Back-UPS 750, which costs a mere $70 and offers 5 battery outlets and 5 surge-only outlets (10 outlets total).
The whole “issue” of the “stepped approximation of a sine wave” rather than a pure sine wave is a matter of no concern in my book. Any UL certified device is designed to work completely perfectly when fed anything within a fairly wide range of voltages. If you look at the power coming out of your wall socket, it’s definitely not a pure, smooth, even sine wave. And your UL certified devices have no problem running off of that “less than perfect-looking” power. Having a “stepped approximation of a sine wave” will have zero detrimental effects.
But it is certainly not beyond possibility for esoteric A/V gear to NOT have a UL certified power section. Plug in a non-UL certified device, and I could imagine it being possible for a stepped sine wave to cause issues. But you should avoid anything that isn’t UL certified anyway!
Just buy an APC Back-UPS or APC AV J or S-type battery backup. It will work. It’s as simple as that 🙂
Computer UPS for AV
The only problem I’ve come across only one piece of network equipment’s power supply that didn’t like being plugged into ANY UPS directly.
Ultraviolet/different color lasers comment, I think Tom was trying to remember about the CD Standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_(CD_standard)