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.