Battery driven gear - where does it end?

[egidius]

I am currently driving my Merlin speakers with a battery driven MIPA (mains independent pa) 30W amp by Audio Consulting, which has led to a prolonged rest of my beloved Berning ZH230 -
Would it be possible to direct me to more knowledge of Batteries, besides the extensive information I am getting from AC; have any of you got experience with Battery driven amps. And have you gone off the grid with the rest of the system as well?

All I can say, this amp is heads and shoulders above a RWA design, and a really interesting alternative to the Berning; the real astonishment is the cleanness of attack and its breathing charakter, even though it assumes a bored attitude at first, like not favouring any frequencies - it's all the same to me ;-)

Interested to hear from you.
E

 

[egidius]

Are you all on the GRID or what?

I am currently driving my Merlin speakers with a battery driven MIPA (mains independent pa) 30W amp by Audio Consulting, which has led to a prolonged rest of my beloved Berning ZH230 -
Would it be possible to direct me to more knowledge of Batteries, besides the extensive information I am getting from AC; have any of you got experience with Battery driven amps. And have you gone off the grid with the rest of the system as well?

All I can say, this amp is heads and shoulders above a RWA design, and a really interesting alternative to the Berning; the real astonishment is the cleanness of attack and its breathing charakter, even though it assumes a bored attitude at first, like not favouring any frequencies - it's all the same to me ;-)

Interested to hear from you.
E

Come on guys, nobody doing battery driven audio???
Or is whatsbestforum really only Burmester shine???
(let's see if this does the trick ;-)

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Come on guys, nobody doing battery driven audio???
Or is whatsbestforum really only Burmester shine???
(let's see if this does the trick ;-)

Plenty here besides Burmester, but battery-driven amps are pretty esoteric, even in this crowd.

Tim

 

[Odyno]

Does ASR count as a battery operated amp?
If so I had a wonderful experience with ASR amo, Weiss Jason Medea and Avant garde speaker!

 

[Bill Hart]

I am using a battery powered line stage made by Veloce, near Philadelphia, Pa. The company also makes a battery driven power amp. The designer is very accessible, and I'm sure if you arranged to speak with him in advance by email, he'd make time to talk to you directly. The line stage is very, very good and replaced another highly regarded piece by another manufacturer. I have only heard the amp at a trade show, so cannot speak meaningfully to that, other than the system, overall, sounded quite good under trade show conditions.
PS: I seem to recall that the Living Voice/Definitive Audio people in the UK had put together an entire power system for audio based on rechargeable batteries. It was a rather substantial set up and may have been reviewed at one point by 6Moons.

 

[amirm]

You can always listen in your car with the engine off and experience battery powered everything.

 

[Odyno]

Or else, IPod and portable amp but that's an other story!

 

[Odyno]

I am using a battery powered line stage made by Veloce, near Philadelphia, Pa. The company also makes a battery driven power amp. The designer is very accessible, and I'm sure if you arranged to speak with him in advance by email, he'd make time to talk to you directly. The line stage is very, very good and replaced another highly regarded piece by another manufacturer. I have only heard the amp at a trade show, so cannot speak meaningfully to that, other than the system, overall, sounded quite good under trade show conditions.
PS: I seem to recall that the Living Voice/Definitive Audio people in the UK had put together an entire power system for audio based on rechargeable batteries. It was a rather substantial set up and may have been reviewed at one point by 6Moons.

I had a chance to listen to Veloce in New York last spring ad the result with YG speaker was very good.
To bad the room was the size of a phone cabin....In my opinion it was what was holding the system.

 

[egidius]

..aah, my old Saab 99 does have a battery. No sound though.

 

[egidius]

What I am really after is you experience about the use of batteries, size, type recharging modes etc.. but I'll probably have to find out in other fora.

 

[treitz3]

Hello, egidius. You may want to contact Gary from Dodd Audio. Many of his newer products feature battery power.

http://www.doddaudio.com/products.html

Tom

 

[andromedaaudio]

I had a nagra plp for a couple of years it was wallpower -battery driven , it could play for a while when disconected from the wallpower and play on the chargeable batteries .
It was a nice clean sounding pre but didnt compare to the CAT with its far superiour sound and basscontrol.
The moment i played on batteries alone it sounded dynamically compressed and lifeless , so i only played with the wallpower cord on , it sounded like with the removal of the powercord the dynamics were removed as well

 

[egidius]

thanks!

I had a nagra plp for a couple of years it was wallpower -battery driven , it could play for a while when disconected from the wallpower and play on the chargeable batteries .
I was a nice clean sounding pre but didnt compare to the CAT with its far superiour sound and basscontrol.
The moment i played on batteries alone it sounded dynamically compressed and lifeless , so i only played with the wallpower cord on , it sounded like with the removal of the powercord the dynamics were removed as well

..With the AC being also constantly connected, I do not fell this "lifeless" syndrome, although have heard other people complain about it. If the grid connection disturbs, I have also not witnessed, but I have reasonably large (75Ah) batteries now, great.
thanks for all your answers..

 

[andromedaaudio]

I know the dart has also batteries , but havent heard it yet unfortunately
Siltech has also done work on it , quite special : http://www.siltechcables.com/CMS/ckfinder/files/Apollo News.jpg

 

[Bill Hart]

In terms of operation and sound re batteries, on the Veloce, it doesn't completely disconnect from AC when running, because, as I understand it, the wall still powers certain control functions but the audio signal is powered completely by the batteries. That said, if I play the preamp for 8 hours, and then shut it off, it goes into charge mode; it takes only a few minutes for the charger to bring the batteries back up to 100%. Veloce has built in a timer so that the unit will shut off automatically after around 16 hours, and you simply turn it back on again- I don't usually engage in 16 hour listening sessions anyway. The reason for this, as I understand it, is that while the batteries can supply power for well over 100 hours without recharging, it is better to periodically have them charge before fully draining. (That may be counter-intuitive to stuff like phones, where I think you are supposed to let them run down occasionally to make sure they charge fully).

 

[flez007]

I had a Rowland 8T amp some years back, the dealer also had a battery driven 8 and I had the chance to compare them both at the store, same speakers/room. To my ears I liked (and bought) the non-battery powered 8 amp, it had a tad more attack and bass grip but less pristine, the difference in price was not small.

 

[microstrip]

I know the dart has also batteries , but havent heard it yet unfortunately
Siltech has also done work on it , quite special : http://www.siltechcables.com/CMS/ckfinder/files/Apollo News.jpg

I am listening now to an all DartZeel system. The preamplifier can work in two modes - only batteries and charging mode, connected to the mains keeping the batteries in the circuit. It sounds better in the battery mode - transients seem faster and the sound seems to be overall more articulated.

 

[microstrip]

I had a Rowland 8T amp some years back, the dealer also had a battery driven 8 and I had the chance to compare them both at the store, same speakers/room. To my ears I liked (and bought) the non-battery powered 8 amp, it had a tad more attack and bass grip but less pristine, the difference in price was not small.

As far as I remember there was a very large difference in the specified power of the 8T when used with a mains power supply or batteries.

 

[microstrip]

I had a nagra plp for a couple of years it was wallpower -battery driven , it could play for a while when disconected from the wallpower and play on the chargeable batteries .
I was a nice clean sounding pre but didnt compare to the CAT with its far superiour sound and basscontrol.
The moment i played on batteries alone it sounded dynamically compressed and lifeless , so i only played with the wallpower cord on , it sounded like with the removal of the powercord the dynamics were removed as well

Are you sure you had the proper Nagra approved batteries in the proper condition? How long could you operate it on batteries before shutting down?

I also owned the PLP and at one time the NiCd batteries were exhausted - it could not play for more than a few minutes without mains. As the distributor was on holiday, I got a 8 D cheap chargeable D cells from a shop. I could use the PLP for a few hours between charges but the sound was clearly of inferior quality even when played with the mains. Later I got the proper cells and the good sound come back. Perhaps if the PLP had a remote I would still own it ...

 

[andromedaaudio]

I bought it secondhand from a dealer who said it was in perfect working order , it had been used as a demo unit , i cant remember exactly how long it could play on batteries , probably an hour (or 2 )
After a year i dropped the small powersupply and broke something , it went then in for repair , not to switzerland but to a local shop that did a lot of repairs on high end gear ,besides the repair it then also got new batteries , i couldnt hear a difference before or after , the CAT goes a lot deeper in the " mix" and i am quite happy with the exchange apart from the noisy phono