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For those of you who have a rack.....

K-Addicted

Active member
Amp manufacturers generally suggest plugging their amps directly into the wall outlet instead of a power strip/surge protector. For those of you who have your equipment in a rack, where do you have your amp plugged? I will be installing a rack in the near future and was curious. TIA
 
I have my forced air cooling amps at the bottom of the rack, near the Kaleidescape server. I have convection cooled amps at the top of the rack.

Almost every single amp I have used in my theater has been plugged into a balanced power transformer. The only amp that I ever plugged directly into the wall was an Adcom 300W x 7 amp that could not run on balanced power for some reason.
 
You definitely don't want to use a typical surge protector. They restrict voltage and you are shortchanging your experience.
 
Interesting question and answers.

Curious if the answer JerryL provided also applied to whole house surge suppression and UPS rack units (e.g. Furman/Panamax). Typical can be subjective.

Cheers
 
Jerry will likely provide his own answer based on his experience, but regarding the power components you mentioned, there should not be a problem, but it does obviously depend on the actual power requirements of the equipment you have plugged In.

I think, but don't know for sure, that Jerry is referring to the standard inexpensive surge protectors available in the marketplace, not the equipment you mentioned. Personally, I use Torus Power products for surge and conditioning, and Eaton for my UPS. Excellent products. (Disclosure, one of my businesses sells both of those products.)

Both Panamax and Furman build excellent products as well, and suffice in most setups.

Jim
 
That is exactly correct. I mean your typical surge protectors. However, I had been told - many many years ago- by someone who worked for Proceed that it was still best to go direct into your power with no surge protectors . I think the better surge units are ok and indeed my entire theater is on its own dedicated circuit and it has an industrial surge protection. But I would be cautious with UPS as this runs off a battery and this can be clean but if you don't give it the headroom, you could ask for more power than it can supply. Remember, its not just the amp, its also the load created by the speaker. If your amp is 300watts with an 8ohm speaker, it likely will draw far more power with a 4ohm speaker.
 
A UPS can be very beneficial, but like anything else in this arena, you should have a good idea of what you need, and don't go cheap. I use a CyberPower UPS in my rack with sine wave output, automatic voltage regulation, and a display that shows total system power output. I also have it connected to the network for remote management and configuration.

Some numbers to keep in mind:

1800W is the maximum for power delivery over a standard household 15A/110V circuit.

1440W is the recommended maximum for continuous power draw on said circuit. This allows for transient peaks without worry that the circuit breaker will trip.

When determining the power draw of your system, though, there's really no substitute for a meter. The power specs provided for the various pieces of gear will be maximum ratings and not necessarily what you'll actually experience.

My rack houses all of my theater gear, as well as network gear, two NAS's, and home-automation gear. The rack UPS also provides power to the theater projector (JVC). With everything on, and a loud movie playing, power consumption peaks at less than 775W. Of course, you need to take into account anything else on that circuit; but, the point being, it's less than most people think just by looking at all the gear in the rack, and less than you'd expect going by just the power ratings of all the gear.
 
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