ericn
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Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Oct 16, 2017 7:35:04 GMT -6
PS - the only "plug in power box" solution I've seen that made any difference beyond what's in the walls and lining the outlets is the Equitec balanced power boxes. They can pull off noise miracles. Sometimes. It's been spotty in my experience. From unbelievable to exceptional to marginally better. Why? Because of what's coming in the walls, and how the grounding of the studio is implemented. And they don't really make things "sound better" per se, they drop the noise floor down in poorly implemented studio's or studio's with ridiculously bad AC, thereby making the gear SEEM like it sounds better. If the wiring coming into your studio from the power pole is crappy, that's where you start. With a call to your power company. If you have brownouts, then one of the expensive Furman boxes that take 80-140v and output 117v will be helpful. Beyond that, find out what the problem is, or if there even IS a problem before throwing money at stuff. A great example is my years in Galveston, every outlet I ever plugged into for recording or Live measured 137 or higher volts! Solution, a Bunch of Tripp Litte LCR 2400 voltage regulators! Why not just a giant filter ? Because every single real power problem solver imposes current limiting! Bill is right Quality gear should have a power supply that's built to handle the real world crap that we have to deal with, but the PSU is the one area that is the victim of Accounting and politics! Politics you say what could possibly be political about a compressor's PSU? Well in certain areas code requires and in other areas bids often require that gear in public buildings all be UL certified. There are two ways to get UL certification send in and pay for UL to test your gear, this can take 6mo- 2 years. The other simpler way is to use somebody else's PSU that has already been tested, this is why we used RANE's PSU line lump on the Intelix small mixers, and you see a ton of crappy line and wall warts they are UL certified. This why you see crappy for audio PSU modules in many 500 racks, they are UL listed! So hey they are crap for audio but won't start a fire! |
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Post by nashbass on Oct 16, 2017 8:20:33 GMT -6
Anyway... back to the initial point of this thread. What would be the preferred order of my new rack, top to bottom. How about....?
Tuner
Furman power conditioner
Teegarden Audio mic pre
Patchbay
Avalon U5
Chandler Limited RS124 compressor
Power amp
**Gaps between the gear reflect open spaces left in the rack for growth.
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,921
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Post by ericn on Oct 16, 2017 8:36:09 GMT -6
I'm with Bill power conditioner near the bottom, easier cable management when your not fighting gravity & keeping mass of power cables away from patchbay mass of line level much quieter.
This is also why it is best to keep PB near console/ work surface and out of rack!
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Post by svart on Oct 16, 2017 8:41:20 GMT -6
Put whatever you use the most on top so you don't have to keep bending over.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Oct 16, 2017 8:45:33 GMT -6
I keep my tuner near the bottom so I don't have the guitar cable running up to the top of my rack.
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Post by ChaseUTB on Oct 16, 2017 8:49:37 GMT -6
Life is like a rack of Hardware ... you never know what will end up on the top or the bottom 😂😂😂
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 16, 2017 11:43:10 GMT -6
Switches? What for? None of my bays have switches, not the ones in the console or the ones in the rack. Am I missing something? The Grounding/Normalling switches. Humpf. Real patch bays use solder, not unreliable switches! And why would you need to switch your normalling mid session? I don't understand why you would ever need grounding switches. |
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Post by ragan on Oct 16, 2017 12:06:51 GMT -6
Anyway... back to the initial point of this thread. What would be the preferred order of my new rack, top to bottom. How about....? Tuner Furman power conditioner Teegarden Audio mic pre Patchbay Avalon U5 Chandler Limited RS124 compressor Power amp **Gaps between the gear reflect open spaces left in the rack for growth. There's no rocket science to it, just put the things you use most at the easiest point to grab. |
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Post by ragan on Oct 16, 2017 12:08:29 GMT -6
I will say this though. One of the best things I ever did for my small room is to get an XLR patchbay. I have it down and the bottom and patching into any of my mic pres is a breeze. Keeps the cabling down low too. Huge workflow benefit for me personally.
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,921
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Post by ericn on Oct 16, 2017 17:35:10 GMT -6
The Grounding/Normalling switches. Humpf. Real patch bays use solder, not unreliable switches! And why would you need to switch your normalling mid session? I don't understand why you would ever need grounding switches. Because nobody ever talked you into a cheap Chinese bay, they make great vent panels when you move on to real bays 😎 |
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 16, 2017 20:37:00 GMT -6
Humpf. Real patch bays use solder, not unreliable switches! And why would you need to switch your normalling mid session? I don't understand why you would ever need grounding switches. Because nobody ever talked you into a cheap Chinese bay, they make great vent panels when you move on to real bays 😎 Nope. When I buy bays they're used Switchcraft. I'm not sure what's built into my console, almost certainly something British. |
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,921
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Post by ericn on Oct 16, 2017 20:38:33 GMT -6
Because nobody ever talked you into a cheap Chinese bay, they make great vent panels when you move on to real bays 😎 Nope. When I buy bays they're used Switchcraft. I'm not sure what's built into my console, almost certainly something British. Hey I'm ADC man ! |
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 16, 2017 20:50:55 GMT -6
Nope. When I buy bays they're used Switchcraft. I'm not sure what's built into my console, almost certainly something British. Hey I'm ADC man ! ADC's fine. I just got started with Switchcraft a long time ago - they used to b e dirt cheap at electronic surplus joints, back when there WERE a lot of surplus joints. 1/4" of course, not TT. I've even found 1/4" and video format bays in dumpsters! |
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Post by NoFilterChuck on Oct 16, 2017 21:06:58 GMT -6
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