Dirty power. It’s the bane of every studio engineer’s existence. Unfortunately, unlike other forms of dirt, it’s not something you can fix with a bottle of household cleaner. To safeguard your gear against dirty power, you’ll need some specialized equipment. In this article, we’ll explain what dirty power is, how it affects your gear, and what you can do about it.
What Is Dirty Power?
The electricity that’s piped into our homes via the utility company’s power grid is expected to conform to a specific standardized voltage and frequency. In the United States, this is 120 volts at a frequency of 60Hz. “Dirty power” is a term used to describe electricity that deviates from this standard due to spikes, surges, and dips. The term also applies to electricity that’s been tainted by an outside influence, such as a stray wireless signal.
What does this mean for you? Simply put, your gear will operate best on clean power (120 volts at 60Hz) with zero outside interference. At best, dirty power can cause subpar performance. At worst, it will shorten your gear’s lifespan or even subject it to immediate damage.
So, what can you do about it? After all, it’s not like you can call up your local power company and demand that they clean up their dirty power.
What’s a Power Conditioner?
The best way to scrub the power coming into your studio is with a power conditioner. A power conditioner is an indispensable device that processes, cleans up, and stabilizes the voltage coming into your home, out of your AC wall outlets, and ultimately, into your gear.
A power conditioner isn’t the same as an inexpensive power strip you’d find at Walmart or from Amazon — power strips simply offer a way to connect multiple AC power cables to a single wall outlet. Even if a low-cost power strip includes some level of surge protection, which safeguards against the largest of voltage spikes, it won’t give you the same level of protection as a true power conditioner.
A well-designed power conditioner not only guards against power spikes and surges, but it will also purify the electricity that comes out of your wall outlets, enabling your gear to perform its best.
What a Power Conditioner Will Do for You
Surge Protection
The power that the electric company sends out of your outlet can spike at 130 volts — or higher. This is because other devices and appliances connected to the same power line as your studio don’t necessarily draw a consistent amount of power. Rather, their consumption varies, which, among other things, yields voltage surges. And the last thing you need is an unwanted transient voltage spike flowing through your electrical wiring and frying your gear.
Professional power conditioners include high-level surge protection to shield your gear from these types of voltage spikes. They’ll clamp down on errant voltages more reliably than dime-store units, and if necessary, they’ll sacrifice themselves when they encounter something catastrophic, such as a lightning strike or a malfunctioning power transformer.
EMI/RFI Attenuation
The wiring in your home conducts electric and magnetic fields as readily as AC power. This leaves you vulnerable to line noise. This is especially true of older electrical wiring. Most of us have had the unfortunate experience of playing in a club where somebody turns on a compact fluorescent light or starts an appliance with an electrical variable-speed motor (such as a blender), and suddenly, there’s an annoying hum. The same thing can happen in your studio — any nearby devices or appliances can introduce line noise, affecting what your gear sees coming out of the wall and possibly introducing it as an audible side effect.
What’s more, everything from radio and television — all the way to cell phones and Wi-Fi — works by sending electromagnetic signals through the air. And, since our electrical wiring is vulnerable to electric and magnetic fields, the vast array of wireless signals in our environments is captured and transmitted using the same electrical infrastructure that powers our studios.
This is why high-quality power conditioners include noise filtering to guard against EMI (electromagnetic interference) and RFI (radio frequency interference). These filters smooth out the rough edges of your power, removing the errant noise and other unwanted artifacts.
Voltage Regulation
Typical AC power can run from 80 or 90 volts to as high as 130 volts, and your gear is expecting to see 120 volts. That’s why some (but not all) power conditioners include voltage regulation, which uses transformers or other technologies to correct and stabilize irregular voltage levels. Essentially, a voltage regulator takes AC from the wall, then either bumps it up or knocks it down to provide a consistent 120 volts of power.
As mentioned earlier, many modern devices and appliances don’t draw a consistent amount of power, which causes unstable voltage throughout the power line, such as dips and surges. Beyond that, your utility company may experience equipment failures. There are also times when your power company may lower the voltage to meet demand, such as during a heatwave when all the customers are running air conditioners.
Stable voltage is imperative if you want your gear to operate in a predictable, consistent manner. And a voltage regulator is a reliable way to ensure that you feed your gear the voltage it was designed to operate at. Doing so will improve the sound of your analog gear, help your digital gear perform properly, and extend the life of your gear.
Uninterruptable Power Supply
Have you ever lost data due to a power outage? If that has happened to you, then an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) can offer you piece of mind. These devices are battery-based units that provide power in the event of power loss. A UPS plugs into a wall outlet like a power strip and powers your sensitive computer equipment. During a power outage, the UPS makes an immediate transition to battery power, enabling your gear to stay on even though the main power is down. This gives you time to save your work and properly shut down your devices. Without a UPS, your computer and other digital devices could shut down instantly, potentially causing any unsaved work to be lost and files to be corrupted.
Keep in mind that a UPS is not a generator and is not designed to power your entire studio during a blackout. Rather, these devices are designed to power your devices in the short term to give you enough time to save your work and power down. So, when the lights go out, your next step should be to properly save your work and any device settings you need to recall later. Then, properly power everything down.
So, what should you plug into a UPS? Well, if a piece of gear needs to boot up when powered on, it should probably be connected to your UPS. This would include your computer, monitor, drives, and possibly your network router. Additionally, any device that could lose its settings if switched off, as well as any equipment that would be damaged by a sudden power loss, should be plugged into your UPS.
Shield Your Studio from Dirty Power
Dirty power is a common nemesis that all studio owners battle. At Sweetwater, we understand how unreliable power can wreck a recording session, and we’ve helped countless studios put together power solutions tailored to their needs. If you’d like help finding the right solutions for your studio, then please give your Sweetwater Sales Engineer a call at (800) 222-4700. We can help you avoid dirty power problems.