Thanks so much in advance for your help…
This is a question I should have asked years ago!
So you get to a venue and you have one power outlet. If you are lucky - nothing else is plug into it and you have a fresh circuit just waiting to be plugged into.
Question - what is the best way to plug everything in?
Quick explanation of what i have…OK - One-Man Band, I have 2 Model 2’s - 4 subs (occasionally use additional powered sub… some LED lights, a wireless mic, wireless guitar and an guitar pedal.
I have a basic rack mount power conditioner (glorified power strip) for for all effects and Bose T1 - 6 things plugged into it.
I also have a rack mounted Controller (just use as On/Off so I have a little control over lights - not a big deal because I set all light fixtures to match beat, just turn on-off occasionally during show. and it’s nice to have them on my rack so I can quickly tunr them on and off -etc…
I had one of those on each side of the stage and plugged everything into them including PA, I also daisy’d them thinking I new better - so the other power pack on the other side of the stage got it’s power from the the other power pack.
I have it all slick - rack mounted and tied up, all cables looking good etc… I thought I was set… but then over time I started having issues.
I called Elation because I started having problems, I got forwarded to American DJ and their tech support said I was doing it all wrong!
I should ONLY plug lights into these things and not the PA… and I should NOT daisy them ever! this would greatly limit the amount of power going to each of them. Then I was plugging power conditioner and basically everything else into them. Elation power http://www.cheapdjgear.us/Ligh… copilot iii.htm
The guy asked if I was having issues with the sound, I didn’t think I was, but last night I tried without and it seemed to sound better, fuller etc…
Problem is I did not use power strip… just 12 guage multiple 3 extensions…
I am afraid to use power strip for the same reason as above, I know you run into limiting power - I want to get a nice professional power strip that won’t suck power but still protect my equipment from issues, surges etc…
I have one rack space with that basic power stip, but would consider getting rid of that if there was something out there that is better…
Some of these venues, the power isn’t all that great, so I would like protection but without limiting the amount of power I get…
So if you could from wall out, how do I plug everything in and what product do you suggest to get all stuff plugged into and fully powered and fully protected.
Thanks!
Kevin
P.S. i Know I should have started with this questions years ago, but thought I knew better - yikes!
Hi Kevin,
Great question. I’m not sure I can answer it, but…
More information please
I think we need more information specifically about the
“additional powered sub” - link to specifications
“some LED lights” - link to specifications
Since we are talking about power we need to know how much power you are drawing when you are running full out.
Power strip limits power
You mentioned this idea a couple of times.
quote:Originally posted by Kevin:
I am afraid to use power strip for the same reason as above, I know you run into limiting power - I want to get a nice professional power strip that won’t suck power but still protect my equipment from issues, surges etc…
How do you know this? I’m not challenging your knowledge, but I’d like to understand the background of this thought.
Are you thinking of a power conditioner?
What problems?
quote:Originally posted by Kevin:
I called Elation because I started having problems, I got forwarded to American DJ and their tech support said I was doing it all wrong!
What problems did you start having?
quote:Originally posted by Kevin:
The guy asked if I was having issues with the sound, I didn’t think I was, but last night I tried without and it seemed to sound better, fuller etc…
Do you mean that you tried the sound without the light systems?
If so…
It is very difficult to compare sound unless you can switch between two scenarios very quickly. I think that if the light systems are impacting the sound, you would be able to hear it just by turning the lights on and off.
Thanks so much ST - I really appreciate it!!!..just talked to tech support, too…
Looking for opinions on power and definitely respect yours.
Considering now Furman Voltage Regualtor
I just don’t want to worry about power anymore! 
)
More specifics -
1. K-Sub QSC
2. Mini-Strip LED Lights - 2
3. 2 LED special lights
4. Sure Beta 58 Mic
5. Guitar Bug - Wireless Guitar setup
6. Model 2 - 2 2 or 4 Bose subs - depending
7. T1
8. Laptop (USB)
9. SMall powered monitor
Sometimes I feel like the amount of power I am getting would drop
Sometimes the problem I was having was sometimes system wouldn’t work at all.
I was at a Gig where one of man stands wasn’t working…
It turned out it wasn’t a Bose issue, it was how I was plugging everything in.
For 2 possible reasons… I called tech support for copilot (light rack mount controller) & he said…
1. Not supposed to daisy the copilots (remote light “power strip”)
2. Not supposed to plug audio into them at all!
a. Powerstrip Assumption - sorry but I was assuming that powerstrips can be an issue when dealing with amount of power especially using multiple power strips… they end up limiting the amount of power you get. over the years I have heard this in different forms. I will be honest I have VERY little knowledge of power and wall eletric amps etc… I know not all powerstrips are made the same, too…
b. Light Controller Plugs for Audio Assumption - I shouldn’t have assumed that just because these light controller looked like power strips, didn’t mean that I should plug everything into them - especially audio.
But I am sure I don’t use more than 15 amps of power… so it’s not too much power I am worried about…
I am more concerned about protecting equipment, regulating voltage and coming up with a systme for both sides of my stage to plug everything into and snake it & label it so I don’t have to worry anymore!!!
------------------------------
Before i had these problems, I was getting the impression that I was having some issues with Bose when everything was plugged into my full setup… maybe it was just me, but I felt the quality was down, and I had to push volumes more to get same results… I know this because there were times when I used less of a setup and did not plug into the light controllers for power and it again might just be me, but I noticed a pretty significant difference…
What got me to this point to ask is when the rack unit supplying power began to fail… it got to the point where because I was daisying the power between the 2 I ran into things not working and had to frantically plug everything in differently to over come the problems, often honestly not knowing what actually specially ended up working.
I have 2 sides of my stage to plug stuff into and run it into the Furman voltage reglator, that will be rackmounts on my setup which I keep to the right of me when I perform
To left of stage… I will need the light controller power, the K-Sub and the Model 2 plugged in…
On the right side of stage Model 2, Light Controller and the monitor
The rest I can plug directly into the voltage regulator…
So what gets plugged into the wall will be 1 plug and that will be from the Furman…
I hope this answers some of your questions and it doesn’t confuse you more…
Thanks!
Hi Kevin,
Before you drop significant money on a power regulator, please read this.
Excerpts from Power Conditioners are Paramount - Bose responses
quote:Originally posted by Bill-at-Bose:
Hi All,
I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but we Bose designers do not believe that a power conditioner provides more headroom, dynamics, better sound, or more fidelity for our equipment.
There are a number of technical reasons for this that I won’t go into online, but a good way to think of it is that we have already put in all the power conditioning required to make the products sound as good as possible.
Yeah, we thought of that
Bill
quote:Originally posted by MikeZ-at-Bose:
Strange things can happen with power, like lightning strikes or A/C’s kicking in on a poorly wired building, as Dan mentioned. These are really rare.
To mitigate these scarce events beyond what the L1 already provides would require a large power regulator with a battery back up supply. This is not something you will want to move to a gig.
As far as everyday fidelity being improved, Im sorry to say there will be no difference. In fact, we test for this sort of thing. If there is ‘bad’ power and the fidelity is degraded, its a sign of a faulty design or component.
This is not to say that the companies that make power conditioning equipment don’t make good stuff, as Bill mentioned we already have the situation well under control inside the L1.
Mike
quote:Originally posted by MikeZ-at-Bose:
Dhurley,
I do not doubt that you are hearing a difference. But, it could be something else. What are other gear are you using besides an L1? Guitar amp? Preamp? Pedals?
I should have clarified what I meant ‘strange things with power’. The L1’s have really robust voltage regulators and conditioning already built in. They laugh at any power event between about 90 volts and 135 volts (for 120V nominal power). A power event outside of this range is rare. It does happen, and its happened to all of us…but it is indeed rare.
We test for all for all of this kind of stuff. We have equipment here that creates the worst, noisiest power you could ever imagine. There is even equipment that simulates the sags and dips associated with compressors turning on. The L1’s must pass both reading on instruments and a listening test. Bill and I may be engineers, but we are also musicians - nothing passes around these parts without a lot of listening
Lots of music gear has zero power regulation - and will much more audibly affected by changes in voltage. An old tube guitar amp (or a new ‘vintage style’ one) is a great example. If the power drops at the wall, its going to drop inside the amp itself and will create some audible artifacts. Most notably, Eddie Van Halen used to use a transformer to turn the wall voltage down to 100 or 90 to his amps to get his distinctive ‘brown’ sound on his Marhsall’s (dont do that unless you have EVH’s budget - the tubes will last about a month doing that).
Anyways, Id be interested to know what other gear is plugged in. Where are you playing that you hear this? Do you have any pictures?..Id be interested to see your setup.
Sincerely,
Mike
quote:Originally posted by MikeZ-at-Bose:quote:Originally posted by DHurley:
One more question. What do you mean be “laughs” at anything between 90-135v? Do you mean the L1 system will still run without hurting the unit? If that’s what you mean…I agree. : ) The L1 system has all kinds of protection in place and seems to be built like a tank. You guys did a great job on that. However, it sounds better when it has the power available to it… when it asks for more. The mix is punchier, more clear, less peaky, and less compressed.
Sorry for the vague term. A little background…
The power regulator/supply in the L1 takes in the AC wall voltage, whatever it is, and converts it down to much lower DC voltages to run the preamps, DSP’s etc. As long as wall voltage is within the range I quoted earlier (90V-135V), the DC voltages that the preamps and DSP’s see do not change. As part of the process of converting from AC to DC the power is also filtered. No matter what happens at the wall, the audio portions just see clean DC power. When the voltage goes outside the bounds, the unit just shuts down gracefully.
So thats what I mean by laughs at, the power levels and quality are maintained no matter what’s going on.
Enough engineering talk
What kind of music do you guys play, what’s your setup? Do you have model I’s or model II’s?
-Mike
quote:Originally posted by MikeZ-at-Bose:
So first, why do we need power regulation or conditioning anyway?..
I just re-read your post and Im glad you mentioned the toaster! The toaster is like most electrical appliances in the world - it isn’t very picky about it’s power - and we would never notice the difference in performance. All the toaster does is take wall voltage and feed it to the heating element (the portion that glows red). If the wall voltage dips to 100, the power to the element drops proportionally. The toast will toast maybe ~18% slower in this extreme case. Noise on the AC line would have little effect on the element- the element takes a long time to heat up and cool down compared to the speed of the power changes, so it won’t care about momentary dips. For example, if a refrigerator kicked in in a poorly wired house, the power may go down to 80V for a tenth of a second. The temperature of the element probably would not change measurably, and the end product (toast) would definitely not suffer.
With audio equipment, we are using our ears to judge the results. We’re going to hear and care about sudden dips and changes in wall voltage, unless we regulate the power.
Digital equipment, like a computer, relies on constant voltage levels inside it’s microchips to operate. These voltage levels (usually around 3.3 volts DC, or less) dictate the ‘ons’ and ‘offs’ at the heart of these devices. If the voltage goes outside a very narrow range, the digital does not degrade it’s performance - it just ceases to operate.
The L1 has both analog audio portions (preamps, power amps), and digital portions (ToneMatch EQ’s, effects in the T1, etc). Both of these portions rely on regulated, constant power to operate well. In the case of the digital portions, it relies on this constant supply of power to operate at all.
The power needed inside the L1 is DC. The amplifiers need around /- 30V DC, the preamps need around /- 18V DC, and the DSP’s less than 5V.
How’s it work?
The L1 uses a low noise switched-mode power supply. These are very light and efficient. Here’s an article on how they work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…ed-mode_power_supply . In a switched mode supply (or switcher), the DC voltage is created from AC by rapidly switching a transistor on and off. The average of these on and off times, after a lot of filtering, becomes the DC voltage (pictures are in the wikipedia article). Regulation is done by varying the amount of the time the transistor is on and off. The switching occurs very fast, always more than 30,000 times per second. Sometimes much more. Switchers are an abstract concept and there isn’t really a good analogy that I can think of for how they work.
For our supplies, there is a lot of extra filtering and tighter than usual regulation to make sure none of the artifacts from the wall power are audible. This is a major part of the product’s design, and the focus of a lot of testing.
For some more reading on power supplies in general: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply
Hope this is helpful and answers your questions -
Mike
And from an earlier discussion:
quote:Originally posted by Hilmar-at-Bose:
To echo Mike-Z, you can budget 5 amps for single system and you can easily run 3 systems of a
typical 15 A circuit.
We do not recommend external voltage regulators because we found that in many cases they cause more harm then help. The amps and power supplies in the L1 use highly efficient switching technology, Many voltage regulators are not a good fit for this technology since they are simply not fast enough.
The L1 is designed to be quite resistant against any AC voltage swings and will operate fine even down at 97 Volts.
Hope that helps
Hilmar
Original Post
Hi again Kevin,
quote:Originally posted by Kevin16:
Thanks so much ST - I really appreciate it!!!..just talked to tech support, too…
What did tech support say?
quote:
Looking for opinions on power and definitely respect yours.
Considering now Furman Voltage Regualtor
I just don’t want to worry about power anymore!)
Based on the quoted material above, I wouldn’t be certain that a voltage regulator is going to improve things with respect to what you are hearing from the L1®s.
quote:
More specifics -
1. K-Sub QSC
2. Mini-Strip LED Lights - 2
3. 2 LED special lights
4. Sure Beta 58 Mic
5. Guitar Bug - Wireless Guitar setup
6. Model 2 - 2 2 or 4 Bose subs - depending
7. T1
8. Laptop (USB)
9. SMall powered monitor
Sometimes I feel like the amount of power I am getting would drop
I can’t tell how much power you are drawing from the above list above.
The QSC KSub looks like a hefty load. I can’t tell from the specifications because but it looks like the draw could be comparable to an L1®. (just guessing)
What is interesting to me is that when the KSub, and the L1®s, and the powered monitor, and the lights are all hitting or lighting up a big bass note (kick drum plus bass guitar sounds plus sound activated lights) you’ve got everything pounding the power source at the same time.
quote:
Sometimes the problem I was having was sometimes system wouldn’t work at all.
I was at a Gig where one of man stands wasn’t working…
It turned out it wasn’t a Bose issue, it was how I was plugging everything in.
For 2 possible reasons… I called tech support for copilot (light rack mount controller) & he said…
1. Not supposed to daisy the copilots (remote light “power strip”)
2. Not supposed to plug audio into them at all!
So less convenient but if you go along with the ideas directly above, then you put keep all the audio components separate from the lighting.
quote:
a. Powerstrip Assumption - sorry but I was assuming that powerstrips can be an issue when dealing with amount of power especially using multiple power strips… they end up limiting the amount of power you get. over the years I have heard this in different forms. I will be honest I have VERY little knowledge of power and wall eletric amps etc… I know not all powerstrips are made the same, too…
I’ve read that stuff about daisy chaining power strips too.
I think I was tripping on the term, “limiting the power” and thought that you were talking about power (voltage) regulators.
quote:
b. Light Controller Plugs for Audio Assumption - I shouldn’t have assumed that just because these light controller looked like power strips, didn’t mean that I should plug everything into them - especially audio.
But I am sure I don’t use more than 15 amps of power… so it’s not too much power I am worried about…
I am more concerned about protecting equipment, regulating voltage and coming up with a systme for both sides of my stage to plug everything into and snake it & label it so I don’t have to worry anymore!!!
------------------------------
Before i had these problems, I was getting the impression that I was having some issues with Bose when everything was plugged into my full setup… maybe it was just me, but I felt the quality was down, and I had to push volumes more to get same results… I know this because there were times when I used less of a setup and did not plug into the light controllers for power and it again might just be me, but I noticed a pretty significant difference…
I’m beginning to wonder if your momentary peak power draw IS exceeding what the single line source can handle.
quote:
What got me to this point to ask is when the rack unit supplying power began to fail… it got to the point where because I was daisying the power between the 2 I ran into things not working and had to frantically plug everything in differently to over come the problems, often honestly not knowing what actually specially ended up working.
If things were working before the rack unit began to fail then why not just replace the rack unit (with another similar one).
quote:
I have 2 sides of my stage to plug stuff into and run it into the Furman voltage reglator, that will be rackmounts on my setup which I keep to the right of me when I perform
Sorry - I must have missed it… Do you have a Furman Voltage Regulator now?
quote:
To left of stage… I will need the light controller power, the K-Sub and the Model 2 plugged in…
On the right side of stage Model 2, Light Controller and the monitor
The rest I can plug directly into the voltage regulator…
So what gets plugged into the wall will be 1 plug and that will be from the Furman…
I hope this answers some of your questions and it doesn’t confuse you more…
Thanks!
Did I understand you correctly - you have now spoken with Bose Technical Support? What did they say?
Thanks again ST…here’s the latest…
1. After your post and discussing with a few other people I respect, I decided against getting a voltage regulator.
2. Instead, I got a nice power strip from Guitar Center.
3. Plugged everything in and found that the rack mount for the copilot had a bad cable.
I couldn’t pinpoint it before, but finally found it.
4. I also found out that I had a few things not turned to the right setting.
5. I had a gig last night and everything seemed better. Of course, it could be just my imagination, but the power was not an issue and the system “felt better” not being plugged directly into the copilot and not daisying them
6. It looks like the problem then was that faulty cable, some settings that got accidently switched, daisying the the two copilots and plugging audio directly into the copilot.
Now everything is going into good power strip which then goes right to the wall.
While it would be nice to have a voltage regulator, they are very expensive and so I am going to going to try this for a few weeks.
It’s a good test because I have 8 shows in that time in a ll different place, newer and older buildings… if I run into problems, I might have to do the voltage regulator.
Thanks a ton for your help!
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
Thank you for detailing what you have done. I hope that there is a learning opportunity for someone else reading this discussion.
quote:I had a gig last night and everything seemed better. Of course, it could be just my imagination, but the power was not an issue and the system “felt better” not being plugged directly into the copilot and not daisying them
Great!
If you get a chance, please let us know how you are doing after you 8 shows in different places.
Thanks.
Hi ST,
Continued thanks for your help!
I had 4 shows last week, the biggest was this past Saturday, a large wedding in Erie, PA. So I was excited about testing everything out.
Last week I replaced & and resnaked all cables - including co-pilot and replaced a few others with Monster cables…
I used the new power strip with noise reduction and did not plug audio into copilots or daisy the copilots. I pluuged audio into power strips and then copilots into power strips used my new 25 ft 12 guage extension chord for power to the wall.
Everything worked great! While I admit it could be just my imagination & I can’t really prove it, going by my ears and my years of using the system 3-4 times a week, it seemed to sound better! Much fuller, and I felt like I had more power, especially low end. I’m convinced the issue was not only bad/old cables, but plugging the audio into those copilots, plus using lower grade extension cables and not using a low noise power strip, and keeping audio and lights separate. All of that seemed to add up to more/better/cleaner power to my towers, subs etc…
I’m going to hold off on voltage regulator for now and see how things go… I know that this was just one week of shows but so far so good…
If you (ST) or anyone else has any ideas/thoughts on power, that would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Kevin
The discussion that ST referenced above was addressing primarily the L1’s only.
I find that other electronics are often not nearly as ‘forgiving’; so, what I’ve taken to doing is putting a small battery-backed UPS (the kind sold for home computers) on all the relatively low-power electronics (e.g.: keyboard, T1, other mixers, wireless receivers, edrum modules, piano/synth modules) and plug the L1’s into a simple surge protecting strip.
If I used lighting (which I don’t currently), I would try really hard to have them on a second circuit (not just a second outlet on the same circuit). I really have read too much technical info on the surge and noise of lighting systems to want to have them on the same circuit as the audio, if I can avoid it.
----
That arrangement of two separate “power switches” also makes for quiet turn-on/off.
Turn-ON: Power on UPS; wait a few seconds; power on L1(s).
Turn-OFF: Turn off L1’s; wait a few seconds; power off UPS.
Yes, things like the Furman power conditioners are much more compact & light, but the bulkier mini-UPS devices are so inexpensive in comparison, I consider it a small investment in reliability.