middleaudio.com

What are possible dangers to an amp from playing gigs at clubs with questionable power?

Also - can an amps sound be affected by poor power? I'm wondering about AC sags and whatnot. Is this something that should be of major concern, or is spike/surge protection all that is realistically required?

There are always dangers when dealing with "questionable" power.

It is always a good idea to have conditioning between you and the source. The best you can afford is a good answer to the next obvious question. Furman products are industry standard.

That being said, the vast majority of audio gear used on stages is usually not connected through power conditioning. From stage gear, right up to PA power. You can get away with that if someone checks the power source to verify it's integrity.

The biggest thing that will affect "performance" of an amp will be starving it of power. Running too much gear from too small of a source. I just experienced a little bit of that at "Salty Jam", with the old... task lights dimming when the kick drum hits... That's a case of the rig not being connected to a large enough service to feed what was being used. Still not near being dangerous to the equipment.

Saint John typically has good power. It's the temporary hookups for shows that are the biggest x-factor. I was just talking to Blake from the Playhouse in Fredericton, and he was telling stories about how bad the power is in that part of town... doh!

I'm sure oddioguy will have some to add to this.

I would agree that sags are potentially more hazardous to an amp than a spike is.
Your amp wants to consume a finite wattage from the power source. If the voltage drops at that source, current increases proportionally. Head room will decrease as well due to the lower rail-to-rail voltage, which in turn can destroy speakers due to clipping.
Spikes can destroy gear also, but tend to last for milli-seconds, which generally adds stress to components in small amounts over time and shortens the gears' life expectancy.
Of course, a big spike........

Furman has a little FAQ page that will scare the crap out of you and make you never want to plug into anything without one of their products...

http://www.furmansound.com/

Here's a place where you can find some reasonable indication of prices in CAN$ for some of the Furman line.

http://www.oakwoodbroadcast.com/product ... mid=40&p=1

I would say 99/100 racks of audio equipment are fed by Furman products of some sort.

[shameless plug]

Anybody looking for Furman products, PM me. (I mean, I gotta eat...right?)

[/shameless plug]

So it sounds like the safest bet is not a power conditoiner, but a voltage regulator.

Which is somewhat scary, considering an entry level power conditioner seems to go for less than 100$, and the VR on that site malcolm put up goes at about 800$.

ouch.

kid_chameleon wrote:So it sounds like the safest bet is not a power conditoiner, but a voltage regulator.

Which is somewhat scary, considering an entry level power conditioner seems to go for less than 100$, and the VR on that site malcolm put up goes at about 800$.

ouch.

Well, in the real world, spikes and noise are far more common than sags. I have never had a failure do to a sag....yet.....

oddioguy wrote:

kid_chameleon wrote:So it sounds like the safest bet is not a power conditoiner, but a voltage regulator.

Which is somewhat scary, considering an entry level power conditioner seems to go for less than 100$, and the VR on that site malcolm put up goes at about 800$.

ouch.

Well, in the real world, spikes and noise are far more common than sags. I have never had a failure do to a sag....yet.....

Actually Jon, there's a reason why you see power conditioners in racks and not voltage regulators... and it's not just cost.

In practice, a good power conditioner is all you need. I wll plug into regulated power 1 in a 1000 gigs... Conditioned power... every gig!

At my facility I run through 10kVA's worth of iso xfmrs needless to say they are barely loaded down. To make a long story short I sometimes measure upwards of 130+ VAC. This does not worry me as every piece of equipment is internally regulated for operating voltage. granted they run a little hot but I installed 250VAC fans and run them on 125VAC so they can run at low velocity and voila problem solved.

By the way, the above scenario applies to control room AC distribution only.
I have not yet decided what to do about the backline AC distribution if anything but so far I have had only one AC issue ever and it did not involve backline distribution but was merely a ground loop.