I have just ordered an airlink balanced unit.
Plan to use it on one of my radials to my hifi room, this will go directly to my star wired 6 sockets. The other one i will leave, just incase i feel the amp is better on this, rather than the balanced one.
I have gone for , BPS100230MP, this will give me a large surplus off power, even if i add the power amp, so looking forward to hearing what it can do.
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Not interested by the Chord M6 Dunc ?
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Why would i be interested in that ? Its not a balanced mains transformer. Its just a power strip.
I already have my own chopped in 6 way socket, that i wired up live, netural and earth, in a star way, so all equal, no switches etc. Plus i then have a single un switched socket.
Maybe you should try, just saying.
But I will not insist, was just curious if you had.
Good luck with your balanced airlink. I have no idea of what it does. Think to remember that @Bluesfan has something like that.
Hi Dunc,
A couple of questions, if I may.
First, if you add together the VA capacity of all the transformers in your Hifi, what capacity do you arrive at?
Second, if you leave your power amp off the BPS, are you aware that neutral and earth on your power amp will be circa 120 Volts different to the neutral and earth on the rest of your Hifi, in particular whichever electronics box it’s connected to?
You may be best placed to think of your Hifi needing to be powered as a completely isolated island, once it is on the BPS.
Best regards, BF
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Keep us posted on this…should give a good uplift…
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Hi sorry just realised i put the wrong one down, was looking at the 5000va, but as i wanted to maybe put my amp on it as well, i went for the BPS100230MP, as this gives me a massive surplus with just the 2 dcs boxes, melco, phoenixnet, and phono amp. Plus gives me the option to have the sia030 on it as well.
Was looking at them all. I believe its good to have a good surplus left in the balanced mains unit.
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Hi Dunc,
The line of my enquiry comes from a good place. Please make sure that the SIA030 is on the BPS if you use one for the rest of your system.
Otherwise, I would recommend checking with all the equipment makers before proceeding as you may end up with some expensive repair bills.
Best regards, BF
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The sia030 has a massive 2.2kva, the rest of the system is hardly anything in comparison to the amp.
I wasn’t sure if the amp would like it on the bms, but with the bigger unit, it should give me more than 50% in surplus, with everything running max. Plus if i ever want to add more gear, i should be ok.
The smaller one will be more than enough if i dont add the sia030 on it.
Not sure why you say it would be dangerous to run some balance, and the amp not.
The balanced unit will be running off one of my suppl cables from my separate consumer unit for my hifi plugs.
I have 2 cables running from my hifi consumer unit, one to the 6 way and the other to a single socket only.
I run the sia030 at the moment on the single socket supply and the rest off the system from the 6 way.
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Depends very much on the safety earth and signal ground topology.
You probably don’t want 120V ac down a signal interconnect.
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Dunc,
I am trying hard to stay within Forum rules here but you may be wise to consider AndyR’s post above and check with your dealer if you wish to keep the SIA030 off the BPS.
If the amp is powered with the rest of the system from the BPS, then your source to amp interconnects will only see a conventional 2-6 Volts rather than a somewhat more unconventional 122-126 Volts…
Best regards, BF
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I see
Well with the bigger unit i really want to run all my hifi gear through the balanced unit as why wouldn’t i really.
Hope it brings a nice little uplift to it all
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Wow…amazing…you just have to keep us in the loop…faberoo…
Ideally, if wired in line on a circuit a BPT is rated at the capacity of the circuit (e.g. 20A) or higher. But what the OP has done looks fine to me.
@frenchrooster asked what benefit they bring. Quite simply, they eliminate both DC offset and common mode nose from the mains by way of decoupling and isolating from the mains with a new 1:1 ratio transformer. And the mechanism of isolation achieves that without any filtering. That’s it. Just those two things but pretty important. They are most commonly used in hospitals as they are required for circuits with things like nMRI machines and other sensitive equipment.
I’d actually specified one for a dedicated hifi circuit on a new home but then energy prices went crazy and I had the electrician simply lay out the circuits as though a BPT was sitting on it so it could be easily inserted. There is 2-4% loss on the rated current for any linear transformer. For example, a 2Kw transformer will leak in the region of 20w. Difficult to say whether that is a problem or not as it greatly depends on country, circumstance, and may mean nothing at all if the home is solar powered.
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The amp wouldn’t be on the same supply as the balanced unit, i have 2 separate feeds from a separate consumer, the balanced unit would be fed from one of these supplies, the other left as it is.
But as said i would rather run all my gear balanced, thats why i went with the much bigger unit, as i wanted to make sure i had more than 50% surplus with everything connected
Well Dunc, I’ve tried. If you insist on going down this path, good luck to you.
Best regards, BF
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Thanks bluefan for your advise. I couldn’t get my head around it 100%.
So i phoned them back again this morning, and had a lovely chat with a guy, he has put me right and saved me some money.
The balanced transformer needs to be fitted on the tails to my hifi consumer unit, and not after the consumer unit. This will give me all my hifi sockets as balanced, and now i fully get what bluefan was saying, and it would have been dangerous the way i did think it went.
I wasn’t going to fit it myself, so i guess my electrician would have put me right, but it goes to show, you 100% need to get this sort of thing right.
Also after giving them my hifi gear, they have said the one i have ordered will be way over what’s needed, and to go for a smaller one, that will still give me 50% surplus.
So it looks like i will have the same one bluefan has.
Once again thanks for the advice, and keep safe all.
I will update once its in and working.
Cheers dunc
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These things sound as though they bring some very real benefits. I wonder why so few use them. I’ve certainly never considered one. People are happy to spend £2,000 or so on a mains block; these balanced transformers look as though they are less than half that, yet hardly anyone has one.
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Well they are large and can be prone to humming so if your CU is in the airing cupboard or kitchen it’s a problem. Plus just being connected they are subject to some loss. Like 2-4%. If you fit one rated for the circuit (which would definitely be recommend) that wastes a bit of money.
But yes, being non conditioning, they are benign on sound quality and offer benefits.
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Pleased to help @Dunc . The reasons for treating the whole Hifi as an isolated island are not always obvious at first but then the penny drops…
Enjoy!
Best regards, BF
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