power conditioner success for cheap...

[HTH AMPS]

I've had some problems with hum through my amp in quite a few venues (pubs) recently and started looking into power conditioning units (Furman mostly).  As Furman didn't have the decency to even get back to me, I went ahead and bought a Tacima CS929 power-conditioned 6-way strip for £18.00 off ebay (used) as a total punt (usually £25.99 brand new on ebay in P&P).

I'm happy to report that not only is the hum almost zero in my amp now, but the tone has also improved - it's tighter and punchier in the bass, mids are more focused and growly and the treble is crisp and clear.

I'm totally sold on these power conditioning units - for £25.99 its worth a try and even if you don't get as much of an improvement as me, at least your gear is protected from spikes and surges.

[Denim n Leather]

Nice!

I use Tripp Lite in my rack, and a Richard Gray RGPC 400Pro for my amp heads:

http://www.richardgrayspowercompany.com/products.aspx?type=parallel

Unfortunately, the Tacima is not available in the US, but Monster Cable makes something similar, as does Panamax.

[sgmypod]

weirdly been using one for ages for my computer

[HTH AMPS]

the beauty of the Tacima CS929 is it's price - its worth a punt at £25.99 on ebay.

[Transcend]

Those look great i shall have a look at them also they sell them in maplins which is a bonus as theres one close to my house

[BigB]

Is there a EU-compatible version ?

[sgmypod]

maplins have em for £40 though

[Transcend]

maplins have em for £40 though

yeah i just noticed that sucks. Ebay it is

[sgmypod]

gonna try mine with amp didnt make much dif to recording stuff so try with amp...prob more sensitive to noise

[forestcaver]

I'm going to try one - I am having problems with mains and RF (that I think is mains related).

Andy

Ps. They're cheaper on Amazon...

[dave_mc]

interesting, thanks for the info. might be worth a look, i get hum too at times.

do they do any with rcd as well? i'm paranoid :lol:

[Dmoney]

HTH, are these kinds of devices doing a similar job to your strip?
I've seen them used in Diezel's but I don't know of too many builders using them. I guess mains grounding is the normal problem that causes hum, but then if that was true, a filter wouldn't really work, right?
I'd be into trying one of these in a build but I'd have to find a building with bad mains to test the benefit.

[JacksonRR]

Good choice, there. I've been using an APC brand unit with similar results. I'm not convinced any of us need to spend the big money on the rack units.

[K-Roll]

I've had a couple of power conditioners and.. without success.. these cheap strips are only to give you a better manual accessibility in your rig, so that everything is lined up in a decent way but it does not solve the hum/undervoltage issue, so, if someone noticed that their sound is tighter with a 20GBP strip, it's all in their heads :) these are more like surge protection units which have a fuse that kicks out once there's too much juice in the socket..
good units with hum filters that have AC voltage stabilizers that really work are really slightly more expensive..
i stopped using these power strips cause it was no good and was really pointless except the fact you can power up your rack units and I bought one thing that looks like a transformer that I have to carry around, but it works very well and i dont care :) ... it was one of the cheapest i could find and it cost 160e :)

[Dmoney]

I'm guessing your talking about a UPS. which i think is the same thing Jackson RR is on about if it's APC branded. uninterruptible power supply.