Using battery power to go off the City's power grid

I'm still enjoying the Giandel 5000 and the Amperetime Battery.  I'm also happy with the Progressive Dynamics 80A charger.  The fan noise on this charger is lower than the Amperetime charger I had before. The Leviton 20A smart outlet is also doing a great job of charging the battery twice a day.

My previous power conditioner can detect the THD of the AC.  On the Giandel, THD is 2%.  On the Bluetti AC300, THD was 4%.  Both are Pure Sine Wave inverters but the Giandel 5000 is obviously at a different level.

I currently use a cable adapter on the high current terminal block on the Giandel which is not ideal because it may limit transient current delivery.  Tomorrow, the 1m Furutech DPS 4.1 power cable, Furutech FI 52 NCF 20A connector, and Furutech FP-209R spade connectors are arriving.  I plan to put this cable together and use it to power my conditioner from the terminal block of the Giandel. 

Hey, all. So you guys have intrigued me. I started out buying an EcoFlow River Pro with the extra battery thinking I'd run my headphone amp and DAC off of this. Well there was noticeable distortion. Like waves of fuzzy distortion with my amp. I was thinking maybe my amp's transformer was too close to the inverter so I moved things around and no change. I do not recommend EcoFlow products, this distortion completely ruined soft passages in music and made it unusable for YouTube videos or Twitch streams due to too much silence. Here you can hear the distortion, I recorded it with my miniDSP H.E.A.R.S. There ongoing noises is my microphone picking up random noise (not sure what) and also because I had to amplify the audio file in order for you to hear the distortion. What you're listening for is the periodic distortion that happens every second or so. You can hear this clearly when music is quiet.

 

 

So fast forward to receiving the Bluetti EB120 (1,200Wh Lithium Ion battery bank). This is an older generation battery bank compared to the AC300 previously mentioned, afaik. No distortion with this unit, whisper quiet. As far as sonics (when music is playing) I think EcoFlow and Bluetti are on relatively equal footing, but the Bluetti might be a smidge better (bass less wooly and treble more extended and textured). Actually the bass when amp was powered off the wall was considerably more impactful and cleaner than EcoFlow River Pro, ime, but I have not yet compared Bluetti to the wall, I've only had the Bluetti for listening for maybe 30minutes so far. Btw, I have an iFi iPurifier for AC mains active noise cancelling on my audiophile wall outlet (no other power conditioning).   

Then I found this thread. Gosh darn it... I've been spending money on pre-made units and of course DIY sounds better as is always the case it seems (DIY'ed headphones, DIY'ed interconnects, etc.) Seeing as my Bluetti is still within return window I am currently in contact with an electrician who is researching how to build a battery bank to code. He's never done anything like this so he is not 100% sure on all its in's and out's. I would wire it all up myself because it seems pretty straight forward, but I'd rather have it done by a professional. This electrician does electrical work on the side, his main job is fire fighting, so he's very safety oriented. He will make sure it's 100% safe for my setting.

This all being said, I do NOT need a Giandel 5000W inverter... Not even close. I need maybe 300W max, but I will probably splurge for 600W or 1,200W just because of my Watthour requirements. I have bought an Amperetime 12Vx100Ah battery. This will suit my needs fine. I need to power a DAC (25W max while powered on, 16W while off due to analogue board never turning off, only digital processing boards turn off unless unplugged from the outlet) and a 50wpc speaker amp which I use for headphones (35-40W draw not matter what as far as I can tell) making it 60-70W max draw for my system. So @70W the 1,200Wh Amperetime should give me 13.5 hours of runtime minimum assuming 80% inverter efficiency.

I have contacted Giandel asking for THD numbers on their various products and they reported that ALL of their inverters are rated for <3% THD and EMI suppression irrespective of model. So, at least according to them, and assuming THD and EMI are the important factors here, all of their inverters sound relatively the same. Their 600W inverter has dual removable fuses on the unit. I see no fuses on their 1,200W inverter, so I am hoping the electrician will allow me to buy the cheaper 1,200W unit (despite 2,400W surge capability and only 1,400W max battery output at full charge) and I can forego having to buy audiophile fuses for 600W unit. I will report back how Aperetime + Giandel compares to Bluetti EB120 which already seems fairly capable and very good sounding.

Btw, as a side note. I noticed Amperetime batteries were "un-returnable" through Amazon, yet on eBay the genuine Amperetime vendor allows returns, seller pays return shipping (free returns). Also it was cheaper by $10 through eBay with a vendor supplied coupon. Just an fyi for those looking into it. If you doubt the validity of battery powered, pure sine wave inverted hi-fi equipment then buy the battery from eBay, buy the inverter + charger from Amazon and you basically have 30 days to build and try everything out with 100% moneyback guarantee. 

Cheers guys, thanks for all the info. Will be interesting to make these battery + inverter comparisons for myself. Hoping you're all correct about Giandel! Hopefully we can get some comparisons between inverters in the future, maybe there's cheaper or even better sounding options out there?

@khbaur330162 Good to see another person take the plunge. I too wished I had seen this thread before I bought the Ecoflow and Bluetti. With the Ecoflow I was able to return and get a full refund but with the Bluetti I was not and I lost a good chunk of change selling it to a family member.

Make sure to get the Giandel asvertised as Pure Sine Wave and FCC Approved. The 5000W is indeed overkill. If I had to do it again, I would’ve gone with two 1500w or 2000w inverters and two conditioners. I would’ve put my digital components on one set of inverter/conditioner and my analog components on the other set. Perhaps next year I incorporate another inverter into the system to separate my digital and analog components.

I do highly recommend a conditioner to go with the Giandel. I compared plugging my DAC and amp into the inverter directly versus plugging into the Puritan PSM 136 conditioner fed by the inverter and I preferred the conditioner. It wasn’t close. Puritan PSM conditioners give a lot if bang for the buck and it’s what I would recommend if a conditioner of this caliber is desired.

Well, I finally wired up the Giandel inverter and AmpereTime battery, have yet to permanently install the charger on the M8 battery terminals, however I have charged the unit back up a couple times, it also doesn't seem to trip the overvoltage on the battery so the unit can be charged and used at the same time it would seem. I have not tried using the inverter when the battery is near max charge and also charging, so perhaps the voltage will trip the overvoltage at some point, but at this point in time, I doubt it.

 

Initial impressions:

1. Smooooooth.

2. (Extension of #1) Cuts down on sibilance, reduced glare/noise, more even tonal response (smidge darker) to my ears (less need for upper-mid EQ)

3. Sounds emanate from pure silence/blackness

4. Easier to pick apart track layers.

5. Bass remains clean yet also gains a bit of oomph in the breath region (analogue bass boost seems more effective) yet impact region seems perhaps slightly lower in respect to breath region compared to wall power with specific songs/sounds, so slight tradeoff yet on average there's overall more impact with Giandel imho.

6. Sounds more refined than Bluetti and EcoFlow somehow.

7. Low noise. I have to turn my amp up a little higher than Bluetti to hear any noise and noise heard is less comprehensive (simpler digital noise than Bluetti and lower in frequency).

8. Echoes travel further and are more apparent than wall.

9. Outer edges of audio image seem extended, less “tunnel vision effect”

10. Very organic texturing, not hyper-realistic like Bluetti, attack not overly etched out.

11. Treble “rings true”. Sounds very natural with impeccable tonal character and extension.

12. Sounds sweeter.

13. Easier to differentiate bass pitch.

14. Easier to differentiate background singers from one another.

 

While I do believe the Giandel is perhaps "more refined" than Bluetti EB120, I feel Bluetti may have been even MORE detailed at the expense of a little vibrancy/boldness of sound and bass impact. I would NOT say Giandel is in a completely different league than Bluetti, personally, I believe it's down to taste (and also DIY skills/your comfort level for DIY). Wiring one of these up seems super straight forward, but I would still like a professional to run through my DIY battery generator and point out any safety hazards and what not that they see. Hoping the electrician can come by sometime soon for me. 

 

I like the Giandel, but there are things I miss about the Bluetti. Perhaps with closer A/B comparisons I'd realize I'm romanticizing the Bluetti a little bit as it was the first time I was able to hook up my DAC to battery power, but I returned Bluetti so no A/B's are possible. The Giandel is very good, it cuts deeper into the tracks than wall power, is more bold/vibrant than the wall or Bluetti, has very nice attack (better than wall and not overly done as Bluetti could be sometimes), smooth upper-mids and nice bass slam (better than wall or Bluetti). It overall does "more better" than Bluetti, imo, but something about the overly analytical presentation of the Bluetti is/was alluring to me.

 

For the cost of an EB120 or even less you can build your own battery generator with much higher Wattage capabilities, same Wh capacity too, yet you might lose out on USB, Solar Charging, and 12V appliance functionalities. Also should be noted the EB120 is very portable in a nice heavy duty case with handle, you could take it to the cabin, or tailgating very easily and it would pair fairly nicely with most equipment you'd wanna run (I believe it had 600W inverter, so as long as it's not a refrigerator, microwave, or high Wattage space heater/hotplate I think you'll be okay). Then again, my DIY battery generator uses LiFePo4 automotive pouch cells as opposed to Bluetti's Lithium Ion 18650 cells, so # of full charge cycles is a bit different and DIY might get better longevity down the road. 

 

I believe the older Bluetti's such as EB120/EB150/EB240 have the potential to sound better than their newer generation generators given what I've read in this thread. You can get 240Ah with the EB240, 100% prebuilt with a charger for $999 direct from MaxOak on eBay with a warranty. Not a bad deal, and MaxOak seems like they have pretty decent customer service. But keep in mind you will have to build your own grounding adapter(s) to ground any three prong equipment you have... 

I read this whole thread, but I don't remember any talk about people swapping out fuses in their Giandel inverters for audiophile grade fuses. Anyone think this could have a positive benefit?