Preventing / mitigating micro-duration power outages

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2FlyingYorkies

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Is there a device or method for protecting audio equipment from micro-duration power outages? In my case, my Aurenders seem particularly sensitive to these sorts of events, as are my DACs. Last evening, for example, as a powerful cold front with blowing snow passed through, the municipal power "blipped" for maybe half a second at most, on at least a couple of different occasions. Not even enough for the lights to do more than flicker briefly without ever actually going dark, but the Aurenders "crashed", rebooted, went thru their somewhat lengthy drive-recovery process, and then had to be manually (button press) brought back online. I have whole-house surge protection at the main panel, but that handles excess power, not lack thereof. And these kinds of outages are so brief that a whole-house generator would never even come on line before it's over.

The conventional option would be a battery backup of some kind, but I'm leery of adding a lo-fi device like a retail computer UPS to what I consider to be a reasonably solid and nice sounding audio power distribution setup. My mind turns to the idea of a supercapacitor that wouldn't even have to be that "super" if it only has to deal with low-power devices for a very short duration power dip. In an industry seemingly obsessed with big capacitors in amps and other gear, I'm honestly a little surprised that there isn't such a feature already in the unit if it's so sensitive to these kinds of minor fluctuations. And switching everything over to battery power all the time with a Stromtank or similar isn't a path I really want to go down.

Or maybe the right answer is that this really isn't a big deal and isn't going to harm any of my gear, so just don't worry about it.

Feel free to move this to the Power sub-forum if that's a more appropriate location.
 
My utility has this, which isn't about outages/brown-outs as much as surges. https://www.tampaelectric.com/residential/start-service/surge-protection/

Someone more knowledgeable can say whether surges are worse for electronics than brown-outs, or the other way around. I always thought surges were the bigger problem.

Only thing I'm aware of to protect against brown-outs (and surges) would be a UPS. I've seen many recommendations against the plug-in variety but maybe the larger units that sit between the mains and the breaker (some, the breakers are actually in/part of the unit) would somehow be less offensive.
 
With a true UPS power is always delivered from the battery, so interruption to the a/c should never interrupt power delivery to the circuit. In other words, there is no switch over.

For instance required for datacenter-level computing equipment, where any interruption to power would be catastrophic.

Such as Vertiv Liebert PSI5 Lithium-Ion UPS | Li-Ion Batteries
 
Hi
I have Aurender N100H plugged into Eaton 3S 550 UPS. We have power blinks all the time, usually <0.1 second. The dip is not enough to cause N100 to reboot, after the blink it still appears normal ready to play. But it either won't play or won't communicate with USB DAC and also gets stuck trying to do soft power off. Only hard power off reboot with rear switch will restore function. But power off while hung forces a rescan of HDD after these events which is not good for it to shut down like that. These Eaton UPS are normal $100 kind, not the "online" type, but the switchover time is still fast enough for all my other electronics and computers. My Legacy Wavelet preamp with Pi inside is not on UPS and rides it without problem. Only the Aurender chokes. I wrote to support@aurender a week ago but not had a reply. I could try an "online" type UPS which is always on so there's no switch over time but they are pricey and the output power quality isnt that great. "pure sine" isnt "audiophile pure," Still 2% distortion.

I considered adding more storage capacitance to the PS inside the Aurender so it can coast for 1/2 second without power but I'm trying to break my DIY bad habits. :D Worth considering though if there's room inside.

A friend with N20 said his is not as sensitive to power blips.

Rich
 
Maybe put an online UPS behind the circuit (ie not plugged into the outlet, I think you understand based on your post but if not I'll try to explain better), and a power conditioner plugged in at the wall to clean up the power coming out of the receptable. Not an expert by any stretch just suggesting a solution that seems semi logical based on your problem.
 
Yes I think technically that is the correct approach. Something like an inline always-on UPS, followed by a PSAudio Powerplant. Only problem is that's 3x my investment in the N100. LOL. But I could power the whole system through that. Thanks jmusica
 
I realized this morning that my media room Aurender actually did not go offline in our recent power events, though the one in the 2 channel system on an Ansuz distributor did. The one that stayed up is plugged into a Torus RM20 isolation transformer. Perhaps that unit has enough internal capacitance to ride out a micro-dip like this, whereas the Ansuz is really just more of a nicely filtered power strip? This is kind of hard to diagnose since there’s no easy way to test without the “help” of the power company…
 
I live in Florida just north of Tampa. With out of control development in the area and our sometimes crazy weather we have electrical blips that aren't friendly with my NAS, streamer and DAC.

Like jmusica, I had the power company put a surge protection on our meter.

I also added a TrippLite SU1500XL that puts out a pure sine wave. This feeds a DC blocker to clean any junk out of the electricity. That feeds a Shynata Hyrdra that powers every thing on the front end.

During those electrical blips everything that is left powered on is fine.
 
brad225 said:
I live in Florida just north of Tampa. With out of control development in the area and our sometimes crazy weather we have electrical blips that aren't friendly with my NAS, streamer and DAC.

Like jmusica, I had the power company put a surge protection on our meter.

I also added a TrippLite SU1500XL that puts out a pure sine wave. This feeds a DC blocker to clean any junk out of the electricity. That feeds a Shynata Hyrdra that powers every thing on the front end.

During those electrical blips everything that is left powered on is fine.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a well thought out setup.

I'm not too far from you by the way, Seminole Heights, so I get what you're saying about power here. Power at the office in Westshore was far worse though so a lot of my experience revolves around protecting a datacenter, I haven't had many blips at home in SH.
 
I thought I heard my turntable skip a quarter revolution the other nite ........... :rolleyes:
 
2FlyingYorkies said:
I realized this morning that my media room Aurender actually did not go offline in our recent power events, though the one in the 2 channel system on an Ansuz distributor did. The one that stayed up is plugged into a Torus RM20 isolation transformer. Perhaps that unit has enough internal capacitance to ride out a micro-dip like this, whereas the Ansuz is really just more of a nicely filtered power strip? This is kind of hard to diagnose since there’s no easy way to test without the “help” of the power company…
Click to expand...

I have a suggestion: Get a Shunyata power distributor. Plug your Aurender into it. With that and with the UPS in the Aurender, you'll be covered just fine.
 
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