AVR Location

[dafos]

My audio system is powered thru a dedicated line regulated by a 3KVA Japanese built Servo Type Automatic Voltage Regulator which is currently located at the entrance of the listening room. I want to relocate the AVR to the electrical room but this will require the regulated voltage to travel thru at least 100 feet of 3.5mm electrical cable before reaching my equipment. I wish to seek the opinion of members on whether they think there will be a reduction, particularly of current delivery, due to the much longer cable travel and resistance the regulated voltage will now have to face. Thanks.

 

[FrantzM]

My audio system is powered thru a dedicated line regulated by a 3KVA Japanese built Servo Type Automatic Voltage Regulator which is currently located at the entrance of the listening room. I want to relocate the AVR to the electrical room but this will require the regulated voltage to travel thru at least 100 feet of 3.5mm electrical cable before reaching my equipment. I wish to seek the opinion of members on whether they think there will be a reduction, particularly of current delivery, due to the much longer cable travel and resistance the regulated voltage will now have to face. Thanks.

Hi

3.5 mm diameter wires according to conversion charts would be about AWG 8 wire .. I would say that 100 ft will introduced and insignificant change in resistance ... 15 foot of this wire 8 AWg has .01 ohm let's extrapolate that to 100 feet, a little less than 0.1 ohm ... will not make a iota of difference IMHO... in term of voltage and current delivery IMO.

 

[DonH50]

Off-topic, but why? If the AVR is in the mech room and the speakers (or amps) are still in the listening room, then the AC line is the least of your worries... Could you describe what and why your are doing a bit more, please?

 

[dafos]

Sorry about posting in this thread, where should I have posted? To answer your question, Don, the AVR is now inside the listening room with the AC line running thru its inputs and the regulated voltage fed back to the AC line supplying the components. I want to relocate it to the distantly located electrical room since a 3 KVA AVR produces a slight hum which is audible from the listening seat at low volume levels.

 

[DonH50]

My mistake on two counts, dafos, I am sorry.

1. I was not questioning placing your post here, this is a fine place for it. I was wondering why you were moving the AVR.

2. More embarrassingly, I did not read well enough and when I saw AVR I translated "audio/video receiver" and not "automatic voltage regulator". Moving the AVR (regulated voltage supply) to the electrical closet sounds like an excellent idea and should not cause any issues. I would use conduit to provide an extra layer of noise shielding if you aren’t already, and if you can, but agree with Frantz the wire itself should not be an issue.

Apologies - Don

 

[tdh888]

Hi,

As long as your not plugging your REF 250 to the AVR I dont think it will be a problem. But if your planning of plugging your amps to those AVR's even in its current location you will have problems in current delivery and resistance. If its only your preamp ,phono section and turntable your AVR is more than adequate.

Hope this helps,

tdh888

 

[garylkoh]

Hi

3.5 mm diameter wires according to conversion charts would be about AWG 8 wire .. I would say that 100 ft will introduced and insignificant change in resistance ... 15 foot of this wire 8 AWg has .01 ohm let's extrapolate that to 100 feet, a little less than 0.1 ohm ... will not make a iota of difference IMHO... in term of voltage and current delivery IMO.

I'm being pedantic - but you need to consider more than just pure resistance with AC. Inductance would be a much larger factor at higher frequencies...... but in this case, at 60Hz, the impedance due to 100ft of AWG8 wire is just a little more than 0.1ohm.

 

[FrantzM]

I'm being pedantic - but you need to consider more than just pure resistance with AC. Inductance would be a much larger factor at higher frequencies...... but in this case, at 60Hz, the impedance due to 100ft of AWG8 wire is just a little more than 0.1ohm.

 

[fas42]

I'm being pedantic - but you need to consider more than just pure resistance with AC. Inductance would be a much larger factor at higher frequencies...... but in this case, at 60Hz, the impedance due to 100ft of AWG8 wire is just a little more than 0.1ohm.

And there's more ...

Depending on what you hook up, the current spikes at the peak of the voltage swing have quite high frequency components in them. And then depending on everything, the inductance of the line in will affect the shape of this spike, and highly likely your sound will change, because power supplies in equipment aren't "perfect" ...

Frank

 

[jadis]

Hi,

As long as your not plugging your REF 250 to the AVR I dont think it will be a problem. But if your planning of plugging your amps to those AVR's even in its current location you will have problems in current delivery and resistance.

hi tdh888,

would a 5 kva avr be suitable for the ref 250 instead of a 3 kva one?

 

[dafos]

Phil, one thing I want to point out, when the ref 610 was lent to me, it was drawing it's juice from the 3kva AVR with no adverse effect on sound quality as far as I could tell. Neither did the AVR shutdown due to excessive current draw though I was advised to power them either straight from the wall or with a dedicated 5 KVA AVR for each amp. For the ref 250, maximum power consumption is 1kw x 2, so I figure that a 3KVA AVR gives a kw of headroom.

If some followers of this thread are wondering why I would resort to potentially current limiting AVR's, that's because I feel it's a fair trade for the protection it provides. The specified voltage here at home is 220v but it's not unusual to see a continuos 245-250v late at night. Typical audiophile line conditioners won't provide protection against this kind of prolonged high voltage surge as most of these conditioners are effective only against momentary voltage spikes.

 

[jadis]

Phil, one thing I want to point out, when the ref 610 was lent to me, it was drawing it's juice from the 3kva AVR with no adverse effect on sound quality as far as I could tell. Neither did the AVR shutdown due to excessive current draw though I was advised to power them either straight from the wall or with a dedicated 5 KVA AVR for each amp. For the ref 250, maximum power consumption is 1kw x 2, so I figure that a 3KVA AVR gives a kw of headroom.

If some followers of this thread are wondering why I would resort to potentially current limiting AVR's, that's because I feel it's a fair trade off for the protection it provides. The specified voltage here at home is 220v but it's not unusual to see a continuos 245-250v late at night. Typical audiophile line conditioners won't provide protection against this kind of prolonged high voltage surge as most of these conditioners are effective only against momentary voltage spikes.

Thanks for the elaboration, dafos. I can fully relate what you mentioned in the second part. Back in the mid 80s, I my brand new D-115MKII broke down in less that 10 days of purchase. The technician at the local ARC office told me it was due to voltage swing where I was. And indeed I was then living in the compound of our factory where 75 HP motors were going on and off often within the day and even at night. So I used an AVR ever since. Because even in my new home, monitoring my voltage with a digital meter, my electricity runs from 235volts to 245 volts and worse, the fluctuation of up and down (10volts) is very common when measured from the wall. With my AVR, I'm basically locked at 225v.

 

[tdh888]

hi tdh888,

would a 5 kva avr be suitable for the ref 250 instead of a 3 kva one?

In the owners manual of ARC (monster power amps old & till the REF 610) its always stated in bold letters " ITS ESSENTIAL THAT THE (MODEL OF THE AMP) AMPLIFIER BE CONNECTED TO A POWER RECEPTACLE . IT MUST NOT BE CONNECTED TO CONVINIENCE RECEPTACLES ON PREAMPS ,ETC. THE POWER SOURCE USE MUST BE CAPABLE OF PROVIDING UP TO 20 AMPERES FOR 100/120 VOLT UNITS AND UP TO 10 AMPERES FOR 240 VOLT UNITS. Its also stated in the specification section that "ACTUAL RMS OUTPUT IS DEPENDENT ON BOTH LINE VOLTAGE AND 'ÇONDITION' i.e. if power line has high distorsion ,maximum power will be affected adversely.

So if each REF250 consumes 900 watts divide it by 220 to get the ampere equivalent (4.090 amp for each amp ) total of around 8.180 amp. His AVR rating is 3 KVA divided by 220 is equal to 13.6 amp so he can use the 3kva w/ tthe REF250 monoblocks provided that he plugs his Linestage, phono stage ,turntable and digital sources in a seperate AVR. One manufacturer of AVR's told me once when shopping for one stated if for example the AVR is rated 3KVA but when you load it (for example monoblock amps) w/c consumes more than half of the rated capacity of the AVR you loose 5% of the actual capacity it will go down to 2.5KVA so it will be around 11.36 amperes.

Regarding plugging the REF 610 monoblocks w/c consumes 2000 watts ea. 9.0 amp each total of 18 amp in my opinion if you plug it it to a 3KVA I agree that you will be able to turn on and listyen to some music but you wont be able to get the full potential of the amp because its simply inadequate for the task and you need at least a 5 KVA AVR or at least two 3 KVA AVR's one for ea.

Sorry for my earlier post regarding plugging the REF 250 to the 3KVA. You can plug your monoblocks to your 3kva. But dont plug your preamp ,phono stage ,turntable and digital sources to this AVR. plug them to a seperate smaller AVR. You dont want line distorsion going to your sources and linestage etc. when your amp start sucking current when your playing music w/ high dynamic contents.


Hope this helps,


tdh888

 

[jadis]

thanks for the informative post, tdh. would you know in actual listening what would happen if the ampere reading goes down from 13 to 11? i had never done an a/b comparison of having an avr performing below its rating vis-a-vis a proper rating or even against 'straight to the wall outlet'. i am now curious if it will mean lesser power output or compression of sound, etc.

 

[tdh888]

I had experience it once when I was starting in this hobby back in the late eighties early 90's. Since I cant afford to buy a big AVR(was in med school), all my equipment were plugged in a 1500 watts AVR ( A pair of ARC D79B's, SP10MK2, EC21ELECTRONIC crossover network a rotel cd player and my Gyrodec turntable) Although it sounded ok in the mids and small ensembles but when playing demanding recordings it was so slow, grainy, closed in, dynamically constricted and it seems that my amps were running out of steam early. My system somewhat sounded better using a single amp I was wondering what the fuss was biamping all about. The system biamped sounds excellent when both D79B's were plug directly to the outlets of our living room and the other components plugged to the AVR. But it was very risky to plug it directly to the outlet because of the poor quality of electricity during that time(Low 180v in the evening 245 v in the morning) in the province. So when my dad got a bigger AVR (5KVA) Major improvement. It opened my eyes how important the quality of juice being fed to our equipment. Whenever Im invited to a listening session its been my habit to check the kind of juice he supplies his electronics. When I think that what the guy using is inadequate for his requirements I more or less know its going to be a short session. Sorry for the long story. I hope one of the experts in this forum whose specialty is clean power would chime in this important topic.

TDH888

 

[jadis]

thanks, doc. that's a nice story, and to hear first hand experiences. i never thought about technical computations for the avr vis-a-vis an amp, i always just assumed it's ok when the avr does not clip or conk out.

 

[garylkoh]

Can you then imagine how throttled back all those systems at The Venetian during CES will be? The hotel supplies a current limiter that exhibitors are all supposed to use, or risk a huge fine if you blow their breakers. What is worse is they then lock up the breakers in the room so that you can't reset them yourself without another huge penalty.

 

[jadis]

just a personal observation, i have heard people complaining about hum from the avr unit itself particularly at the 3kva and 5 kva models where the noise gets quite bothersome. for decades i have been using a 2 kva for my amp alone and 1 kva for all other gears. i do hear a little hum on the 2 kva when i poke my ears a foot away from it and the 1 kva is virtually nil.

 

[tdh888]

Can you then imagine how throttled back all those systems at The Venetian during CES will be? The hotel supplies a current limiter that exhibitors are all supposed to use, or risk a huge fine if you blow their breakers. What is worse is they then lock up the breakers in the room so that you can't reset them yourself without another huge penalty.

So thats the reason why when audio research participates in the hi fi shows their monster amps are just static displays. They usually use the smaller amps.

 

[mullard88]

Hi Dafos,

I use two AVRs. One for the front end components and one for the back end components. Both are directly connected from the circuit breaker to the electrical line. I have not tried using the AVRs between the equipment and the power outlet so I can't give a comparison betweeen the two locations. If you wish, you can swing by my place to see for yourself.