Do automatic voltage regulators work?
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2024
- An automatic voltage regulator can provide long term stability for the house when voltages are unsteady, but are they needed or even desirable in a high-end stereo system? Have a question you want to ask Paul? www.psaudio.com...
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I have that monster avs 2000, use it to keep voltage stable for adjusting the bias of my tube mono blocks. This past summer we had a brown out, lights in the music room were hardly lit. The monster corrected the voltage by 32- 38 volts keeping the system playing it WORKS!!! I don't hear the avs at all.
Countries outside of the US we experience a lot of power surges so AVR's are a must.
Boy, don't I know it!
A variac is not the only type of voltage regulation.
Especially when it comes to lower voltages (below 24 volts) there are many types of solutions.
Like the (in)famous 78xx/79xx TO-220 IC's or the buck/boost converters.
The performance of those mostly depend on the dropout voltage.
As long as the voltage is above the dropout voltage (but not exceeding the absolute maximum), it will work fine and stable.
These margins are often very big; the only thing that really matters is the voltage ripple produced by mainly low quality components.
Especially the cheap buck/boost converters often produce a voltage ripple because of the switching functions within the component.
Thank you for posting such instructive videos !
hey, i recognize those microchip PIC programmers in the background. used those back in college as our introduction to microcontrollers
Question... Wouldn't larger bank of capacitors in the amp power supply act as a reservoir for instantaneous demand for power that comes from a transient load like a thunderous crescendo?
I am not suggesting that a Power Plant is not a strong addition to sound quality of the system. I have audio friends who rave about their PS Audio Power Plant. Just curious to what extent cap banks can address the issue of dynamic power delivery.
Ahahaahah this person is hillarious. Classic older person. I love him. A simple guide to should I buy something to sharing random story from younger days. Beautifull
Transients as you explain is only applicable to class AB. In class A the current draw is constant on the power supply regardless of power transients.
Class A isn't strictly constant, as there is some variation, but most importantly, class A amplifiers just don't put out much power, so they don't load the line that much.
But in any case, if the amplifier is pulling the AC line down enough for that to contribute to clipping/distortion, the simplest solution is just to turn the volume down a couple of dB. No need to spend thousands on an overly-complex solution like an AC regenerator.
I think that AVRs are still needed nowadays because fluctuations still happens every time. Do you have any recommendations? How about www.panther.ph/?
Does anyone here remember or had the opportunity to go backstage in an old Performance Theater and seen one of those old VariAC light control systems? Some of them were HUGE!!!! Some even had automobile steering wheels to turn the lights up and down. A lot of times that junk is still there and hidden away having been replaced but not actually removed.
My father worked in the theatrical business, not electrical but set and costume design so I had some exposure to the lighting systems at an early age. In the 1900s they used "piss pots" as dimmers! These were jugs filled with salt water and had two electrodes immersed in the solution. The depth varied the resistance. And the solution got rather hot under load, hence the name "piss pot". In the 1920-30s they used simple rheostat dimmers, an improvement but still very inefficient. They also toyed with tube based voltage dividers - like a pass transistor in a linear power supply. But the Variac in the 1940s and later the SCR in the 60s finally resulted in efficient dimmers.
I aint an expert but what I have read elsewhere is that it is essential to have huge capacitor banks feeding power to your power amps.
Plug it in and switch it on -- it's smoke test time.
How about for 220v and what you're getting is 250v? Is that considered "extreme"?
If you're talking about the UK, we use 230V +/- 10% (single phase) so 207V to 253V would be within the supply tolerance and within the design tolerance of any equipment that has passed British and/ or European standards to be connected to the mains.
You'll never see that much variation in the UK mains supply though, mostly, if you use a good quality RMS meter, you'll find your supply sits around 238 to 247V (ish).
The 3 phase Voltage is 400V +/- 10% so that's 360 to 440V.
@@thomasvadasis516 according to the books, a theoretical maximum deviation is + or minus 10% that means a voltage deviation of up to + or - 23 volts is within tolerance. I have measured slightly over 250v in the UK but I can't remember the exact number. Around 248v is quite normal in my home though.
Equipment is designed to operate or at least, not be damaged by the deviations, it doesn't have to operate 100% normally, just not explode or otherwise become dangerous during voltage fluctuations.
@@thomasvadasis516 no worries. 👍
How is a variable voltage regulator like a variac?
Because some are exactly that used for long term voltage regulation. Monster Cable used to make one that was a variac with a motorized control.
Damn! That was funny!!
Audio power regeneration appliances are just a flawed idea. Smooth DC voltage and short term power delivery comes from the caps inside your amp. If it doesn't then you've designed your amp incorrectly!
That's only partially accurate. You have to look at the time involved. If the incoming AC is flat topped, as it often is, there's no way for the internal power supply capacitors to make up those differences. Further, the only source a power supply capacitor has for refilling its reservoir is from the line. Most power supplies internal to power amps won't hold up longer than one half a cycle. So, I am curious where you get your information about the fact amps "should" work for short term power under musical demands.
First of all power supplies of power amps are typically fairly crude beasts that are unregulated and don't give you anywhere near constant voltage. The voltage just needs to be high enough and the caps need to store enough energy for a big transient load that happens during the mains zero crossing. So a small drop in the input voltage does not matter, especially if the amp is not operated anywhere near maximum power. If you are worried about noise from the mains, put in a choke. A serious brown out of the mains might be a problem but then the automatic voltage regulator might just do the trick. So yes, a power regeneration box does not make sense. Or the simplest solution to all of this would be to just use a switching mode power supply which can work over a very large range of input voltages.
PS-Audio sells those so they claim it is important but you are basically correct. It is the secondary side in the power supply that really makes a difference. As long as the transformer is big enough it's good.
But try arguing with the quasi-scientists at PS-Audio claiming otherwise.
I am looking forward to the UA-cam debate with Ethan Winer.
I've seen inside of some AVRs and they are just a transformer with lots of taps and a bunch of shady as hell circuitry to select between them.
your mind is shadier than that. lol
Ah yes, the good old smoke test.
Don't get Paul on smoking please,,,, he smokes enough weed,,,,!!!!!!!
I had two of each of the monster 7000 series and 2000. They had multiple issues and problems the taking contactors plucking away inside the unit Nother problem when you turn on the blue LEDs on the front panel there would be a humming buzzing sound coming through your high-efficiency speakers. After about three or four years the capacitor started To fail inside the units. You can just guess me and 100,000 people will probably never buy another monster product again that’s a great marketing strategy. Don’t you think lll. But he did get the laugh all the way to the bank cashing our checks at the audio foolery
I still have a few of their low end cables but that's as far as I go with Monster. Everything about them as a company makes me cringe.
Noel Lee is a crook...he screwed us all out of money. He used one wire stock for the entry level, mid and high end. He fucked himself out of the business because we all caught onto what he was doing...their power conditioners and surge protectors limited current for amplifiers. Doug Blackburn caught him on that one in Widescreen Review.
What you did get was quality. Most of their products were robust and very well made. But what a fraud that company turned out to be...
@@kirkcunningham6146 Not to mention their proprietary little front end modules they put in their amplifiers that failed all the time and you couldn't get replacements. They were supposedly Bob Carver's design. LMAO
Yet again he is plugging a product that is pure BS. He is selling a power regulation product that make no practical difference in even the highest level of audio equipment.
That’s not entirely true. It can very easily drop the line impedance significantly, assuming you have poor service quality. The impact of this would likely be more significant on lower to midrange gear that lacks extreme overkill storage and filtering. The higher end gear probably won’t have a significant impact, but it also is more likely even a trivial impact can be considered worthwhile on the high end. Now, if you have relatively low mains impedance, it won’t make an appreciable difference. But most people have no understanding of this, and there’s often very little one can do aside from an oversized short dedicated line to the main panel. Even then, the line impedance at a main panel can be significantly different from one place to the next. It’s massively dependent on the distance to the transformer, the transformer used, the wire size to the transformer, and the loads on that line and transformer if it’s shared. My house with a standard 200A split phase residential service has under half the impedance as a brand new 400A commercial service with oversized copper conductors. But my main panel has about 20’ to the ground mount 50kva transformer that’s serving just two houses, whereas the commercial service has 170’ to the pole with 25kva transformers. These factors tend to mostly be out of ones control, and even much more so in a dense area or a shared building.
I thought about simply deleting this rather negative comment because it's really of very little value but I sense you have something to say. Since clearly voltage regulation and lowered impedance on the line are not only valid concepts but have been in practice and in use for several decades at labs, recording studios, and thousands of hifi systems around the world, what basis do you suggest this is just BS?
Or, are you just lashing out because of a bad morning? I can understand either.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio most people don't realize that its not just about power stability when it comes to power regenerators, also the output impedance plays a big part in it being useful at certain situations. So the most criticizing comments are from people who don't see the full picture of all the benefits.
How is having enough power at the ready for quick transients pure BS? Not to mention insulation from circuit line noise like cheap dimmer switches? Maybe your system isn't revealing enough to make that audible but mine is and I don't care for line drops on my other devices while while I'm listening to music.