Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

APC Back-UPS Pro BX1500M

​I’m “inserting” a very important post here about the power quality supplied to the critical electronic circuits in the recording chain.  All circuits that create, process, record, and play back signal data require electrical power obtained from the wall outlets in your home.  This AC power needs to be properly grounded, filtered, regulated, and uninterrupted.  The most important equipment you “plug” into your home’s wall outlets includes electronic instruments (digital piano), the audio interface (with its pre-amplifiers and ADC converters), and of course, the heart of your recording system, the computer.
 
The importance of having quality power became very apparent to me when a very fast power transient in the line circuit into which my computer is plugged caused the computer to flick off.  Certainly, the loss of data can be catastrophic.  But I also wondered about ‘noisy’ and unregulated power being supplied to amplifier and other signal processing electronic circuits in the recording chain.  Could there be any noise or distortion effect introduced into the voltage signal ?  In any case, it was time to invest in an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) unit that would provide uninterrupted and conditioned power to my electronic circuits.
 
A good UPS unit protects your electronic devices from harmful power surges, spikes, lightning, and outages.  It also provides noise filtering and automatic voltage regulation that instantly corrects voltage fluctuations.  I purchased the APC Back-UPS Pro BX1500M unit, shown in the photo above, to use in my home music studio.  This unit has the following specifications:
 
Output power capacity (volt-amps):              1500VA
Maximum Load:                                              900 Watts
 
Utility AC Voltage Range / Frequency :          88 to 139Vac,  60Hz +/- 1Hz
Automatic Voltage Regulation (Vac):             (88-107)  + 11.2 %
 
Output Voltage / Frequency (On battery):     115 Vac +/- 8%,  60Hz +/- 1Hz
On-battery Waveshape:                                 Stepped Approximation to Sine Wave
Transfer Time:                                                 8 ms (typical),  10 ms (maximum)
Battery Type:                                                  24V sealed, lead-acid
 
Surge Protection Energy Rating:                     789 Joules
Filtering:                                                          Full-time multi-pole noise filtering
                                                                        5% of IEEE surge let-through
                                                               zero clamping response time: instantaneous
 
 
The cost of this UPS unit is currently $165.  Although this may seem rather “pricey,”  I feel it is a worthwhile expense to protect your home music studio equipment.