Hi All,

Was wondering if anyone has any experience with using a true "online" UPS with their home theater systems.

Talking about one of the units from Tripplite, APC or others. Unfortunately, have not seen any true online units specifically made for home theaters as all the HT UPS I have seen seem to be line interactive (if they don't specifically say they are online, I assume they are interactive).

Why use an online UPS? Apparently, they output a true clean sinewave power signal as opposed to a square wave signal that line interactive products apparently put out.

My biggest concern with the online UPS that I have seen is that they are mainly for server and networking use and are fan cooled. Concerned that the fan might be too loud for use in an HT situation.

I'm asking about this because power in my house fluctuates a lot and it would be nice to have some sort of unit that keeps it at 120V with a nice clean 60 hz sine wave. Have looked at the Monster AVS 2000, but apparently it's slow to react and can limit power going to the amp.

You can find a 1600 watt online UPS for about $900 online.

Any input or suggestions for other solutions would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

I'm using an APC Matrix 5Kva unit. I've also used a APC Symmetra 5Kva unit and a much cheaper SmartUPS 1500. I've been very happy with them all as I have the same situation with dodgy main power in the house (an older house in the woods).

You should be able to get a SmartUPS 1500 for about $200. Depending on your power requirements, you could get two and use one solely for the amp.

Cheers,

I'm using one of those SmartUPS units from APC. I have lots of brownouts, especially during the summer time. Threw one of those on the old HT and haven't had any problems with it since.

Thanks for the info. Do those SmartUPS throw out any fan noise or anything?

I'm currently looking at http://tripplite.com/products/product.cfm?productID=2949

Can get them for about $550 each. 1200 watts of pure sine wave goodness.

Haven't priced out similar unit from APC, but I'm sure they are going to be the typical 10% higher in cost.

Blogg...

Have you looked into APC audio ?

Yes, and I see no reason to pay $1500 for what is essentially a $500 UPS with a fancy face plate and it's not even an "online" UPS at that.

Still line interactive, which APC seems to think puts out a sine wave signal, but the literature I've read about UPSes suggests that only "online" UPS put out true sine wave 60hz power signal.

Not a lot of good info out there on the performance of the APC HT UPS, other than it works.

My experience with Tripplite products in the datacenter environment hasn't been very positive so I don't have any recent first-hand experience with their current product line.

The SmartUPS 1500VA unit is silent except when you lose power. Then you hear a relay click an a very quiet fan. I find it to be inaudible when the stereo is on (which seems to effectively make it a non-issue if you're planning to use it for your audio gear). The 1500VA unit was able to power my system below for a few minutes at near reference levels with the plug pulled out of the wall.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

What kind of bad experiences have you had with Tripplite products?

Premature failures were a serious problem when we had about $250k worth of their gear in several datacenters. Even though they would make good on them, it was a huge pain in the ass to deal with the frequent replacements of batteries and circuit boards. We ultimately donated all of the gear to charitable organizations (hopefully, they had better luck than we did) and replaced everything with APC gear. And the APC stuff just plain worked. No muss...no fuss....but more importantly, no failures.

Cheers,

I don't think I've seen a failure yet with any Tripplite equipment, but have seen failures of APC equipment.

Then again in all fairness, have dealt with a lot more APC UPSes than Tripplite.

So far I've had good success with the Tripplite items though and they make affordable Online UPSes whereas all of APC's UPSes are line interactive.

I will most likely try a Tripplite and let you know how it goes.

My mistake.

Finally found the online UPSes on APC's site.

Was selecting Home User on the front page which of course limits the model lines visible to the user.

The APC Smart-UPS RT line of UPSes are all online type devices.

Heh. I figured you were looking at the "consumer" stuff rather than the "geek section." 8-)

I've probably purchased close to a million dollars of APC gear over the last few years and I can't report a single failure. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened...just that none of my people has deemed it necessary to tell me. 8-) We pre-emptively retire/upgrade batteries after 3 years though.

If you've got the $$$ and you want to over-engineer a bit, I'd suggest finding a used APC Matrix. I'm very happy with mine and it could probably supply all the current needs for my home in a power outage. 8-)

Cheers,

Heh, well with a name like BloggingITGuy I gotta go geek all the way.

Yeah, the two or 3 failed APC units that I've come across were all much older than 3 years, if my memory serves me right.

Where do you have your Matrix? Is it part of your home theater setup, or does it sit in the garage or an attic or something? If memory serves, those things are pretty big and probably fairly loud. Would imagine you have it tucked away where you don't have to hear or see it?

Anyhow, I'm probably going to go with the Tripplite SU2200RTXL2Ua.
http://www.tripplite.com/products/product.cfm?productID=2950

Can get them online for like $600 after shipping.

It's in the basement and I've got some 10/3 SJO cabling coming up through the floor to a breakout box behind my audio gear. There are 2 independent 20A circuits. I feed the amp from one and everything else on the other. Input power to the Matrix comes from a spare 30A 220V dryer outlet.

The matrix weighs in at several hundred pounds when it's populated with batteries. 8-) The noise level is negligible. It's dead silent as long as it's got input power. When you lose main power, you hear a bit of fan noise and faint transformer buzz.

I had a few 2200VA APC rackmount units that I was going to use for this purpose, but the batteries turned out to be suspect and the dreaded "expansion of the goals" happened....and the rest is history. Let's just say my wife is a very patient woman. 8-) The flipside is that when we had an extended power outage during the last big nor'easter in CT, we had stereo, cable TV, VOIP phone service, and even a microwave all running off the Matrix for the better part of a day. One of these days I'll spring for the kit to just wire it into the main power panel of the house and then get some extended runtime batteries so it doesn't freak out with loads from the fridge and the well pump.

Cheers,

Very sweet, wish I could do the same, but don't have the cash to do it and the fact that I'm renting the house I'm currently in makes it that much harder.

Have been thinking about getting a quote from an electrician to get a dedicated 20amp circuit installed in the "home theater" room though. Would all depend on cost and whether they could do it without punching holes in walls and stuff.

Oops...I meant to say that I would go with the 1500VA model and not the 2200.

Still haven't made up my mind though. Still looking for deals on ebay and weighing my choices.

If it's a short run and you've got exposed rafters in your basement (or wherever your main panel is), it shouldn't be horribly expensive (a few hundred bucks) to run a 20A line.

Cheers,

OK, so I got a used Tripplite 1500VA UPS on Ebay for like $145 after shipping.

Like I feared, the fan in the unit is pretty noisy, even across the room.

Going to have to figure out a good way to either slow down the fan or replace it with a more quiet fan.

I ended up just disconnecting the fan and now no noise.

Lack of active cooling probably won't be a problem unless the unit has to go to battery power.

What I'll probably end up doing is either buy a lower speed fan or most likely buy a fan speed controller by Zalman like a Zalman Fan mate.

Anyhow, should work very well for my needs or for others who are looking for some sort of power regulation.