Power Filter? Need a little help...

[The Dali]

Hi everyone... I need a little help. I imagine there is such a beast as I am going to ask about, so hopefully some of you have some experience with them...

My electrical power in my house is decent, but we recently added some electrical baseboard heat that has created a rhythmic "hum" with my amp. I assume that they are sharing a circuit of some kind. (the heat is upstairs).

In addition, I have flourescent lighting in the basement, so that also creates some hum. Plus, when you add a TV or stereo.... well you get the picture.

I will be re-wiring the room and removing the flourescent lighting in favor of standard overhead lights, and I can move the amp to another outlet which may be on a different circuit.

With that said, are there any products made that "filter" or "clean" the electricity? Some kind of power conditioner? Does anyone use such an animal? Any suggestions?

With my tube amp and my semi-hollow the noise is a bit much. Thanks!

[crguti]

Re: Power Filter? Need a little help...

you need a power conditioner. check the webpage of Furman for more details: http://www.furmansound.com/product.p...=01&id=PL-PROC

[SlyFoxx]

Re: Power Filter? Need a little help...

You might get away with a dedicated circuit for your gear. A new circuit on the other side of the breaker box from the dirty stuff might be all you need. There's a lot of snake oil being sold out there. Be careful. I think your best bet is to try and cure your power ills at the source. Lose those florescent lights. Beware of dimmer switches. AC and refrigeration can cause problems when they kick on and off.

A power conditioner that really filters electric gunk will not be cheap.

[woemoejack]

Re: Power Filter? Need a little help...

I highly doubt the heater upstairs is sharing the same run from your breakers as the outlets in the basement... but I've seen worse electrical jobs before so I wont count it out. if you can find out for sure that the circuits are separate and its still adding noise, getting rid of the fluorescents and a power conditioner will help out the most.

[J Moose]

Re: Power Filter? Need a little help...

If you're going to rewire the room the absolute best thing to do is put in a dedicated circuit or two that will be solely dedicated to powering gear. That's the way its done in studios and stages... one circuit for gear, another for lights, another for any PC/computer stuff, yet another for "dirty power" like the mini-fridge and cell phone chargers etc.

Beyond that, on a budget I'd recommend one of the Monster power conditioners like the 2500. I have the step-up, the 3500 at the head of my production gear and they really DO work for cleaning up 'dirty' power sources and keeping one piece of gear from affecting another piece.

Real power conditioning weighs a lot and costs money. If you want to go a step further you could get a variac and the transformer(s) will keep you fully isolated from all sorts of junk. Better would be a variac along with one of the Monsters or a Furman AR1215.

Less expensive options like the $99 rack mount "conditioners" and even the PL Plus really aren't much more then a $15 power strip in a rack box...

[uOpt]

Re: Power Filter? Need a little help...

Hi everyone... I need a little help. I imagine there is such a beast as I am going to ask about, so hopefully some of you have some experience with them...

My electrical power in my house is decent, but we recently added some electrical baseboard heat that has created a rhythmic "hum" with my amp. I assume that they are sharing a circuit of some kind. (the heat is upstairs).

In addition, I have flourescent lighting in the basement, so that also creates some hum. Plus, when you add a TV or stereo.... well you get the picture.

I will be re-wiring the room and removing the flourescent lighting in favor of standard overhead lights, and I can move the amp to another outlet which may be on a different circuit.

With that said, are there any products made that "filter" or "clean" the electricity? Some kind of power conditioner? Does anyone use such an animal? Any suggestions?

With my tube amp and my semi-hollow the noise is a bit much. Thanks!

I would expect that you get these problems as electromagnetic waves directly out the ether and not via the power lines.

You need to review the shielding in your rig. What kind of amp? Does the noise continue if you connect nothing?

[The Dali]

Re: Power Filter? Need a little help...

I'll check it tonight. I used a different amp (solid state) on a different outlet and it was pretty quiet.