Cleaning up Power

[higgalls]

Hey,

I run a youth drop-in centre in Sydney, called the Encounter Youth Centre, and we have recently been upgrading our sound equipment.

In our building the sound can be quite dirty at times, and I have been looking at what might be best to clean it up. Cost is obviously an issue as our funds are limited.

I was originally thinking about a power conditioner, but the cost for that would be too great I would imagine. The other option I had was a UPS. Would a UPS work well in cleaning up the power? (I'm guessing as long as it outputs pure sign wave power?)

Now, we use a Powered Mixer, with passive speakers, so do we need a high capacity UPS, or is a smaller one fine considering we don't care how long it lasts on batteries? We would purely want it for cleaning up the power.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you think a UPS would be suitable, and you have a decent rack-mountable one for sale for cheap, then please let me know what you have.

Thanks.

Cheers,
Chris

[HA_DA_JA]

Define Dirty Sound?
Dirty sound can be the choice of products you use eg be!@#$%^&

[higgalls]

Define Dirty Sound?
Dirty sound can be the choice of products you use eg be!@#$%^&

Hey,

Some noise/static coming through the speakers.
I know we have definitely have issues in another part of the building where I had a DI Box running from my laptop, and it was all working fine until we plugged my laptop into power, and then some noise started coming through.

Hope that helps clarify it a bit - I'm not a audio techy, so my apologies if it doesn't help that much.

[higgalls]

Sorry - I will add that we are using a Yamaha EMX66M Powered Mixer (don't blame me - it was already around before I came on the scene and we don't have the money to replace it at this stage).

[rob]

laptops are notoriously noisy when you hook their audio outputs into an mixer etc.
You'll find if you pull the charger / plug pack out of the laptop the noise will go away. Confirm this is the case and your main issue. Then look at a dedicated interface adapter for the laptop to the mixer

[higgalls]

laptops are notoriously noisy when you hook their audio outputs into an mixer etc.
You'll find if you pull the charger / plug pack out of the laptop the noise will go away. Confirm this is the case and your main issue. Then look at a dedicated interface adapter for the laptop to the mixer

Hey,

Sorry I should have been more clear - that was just the issue we noticed upstairs.
We normally have a low-level hum/static that comes through the speakers (noticeable only when we don't have the volume turned up), and we noticed recently when we purchased an old-school arcade machine, that when we turn it on, it will put a noise through to the mixer. I would have to hook it all up again to hear what the noise is again though because I can't quite remember.

[rob]

first step is to always check the integrity of your mains earth. An electrician can do this.
Mains filters are available and can help but you need a proper industrial type not the pissant power board type thing. I'm trying to recall where I purchased these in the past .....

[Gian]

Harbuch?