2. misc-audio
  3. 194936-149333

Battery-Powered Audio System Buzzing?

I’ve seen many people proclaim the merits of powering one’s audio system with a battery, rather than from the wall AC power. I purchased an Anker SOLIX BP1000 battery as a household backup in case of power outages. I figured why not give it a shot on the audio system.

Well, it powers the system just fine, however, there is a buzzing that comes through the speakers when using the battery as the power source. When plugged directly into the wall (or rather through a Zero Surge unit), there is no buzz. It is silent as can be. 

Does anyone have any ideas as to why the buzz might be happening when powered by the battery? Any insights would be much appreciated! For reference, I am running a Macbook -> Schiit Yggdrasil OG ->Don Sachs preamp -> Schiit Tyr monoblocks -> Tekton Encore towers.

 

sid-hoff-frenchman
cleeds
6,272 posts
 

It's very common for devices such as yours to have a noisy inverter. They're really not made for audio.

ghdprentice
8,112 posts
 

@cleeds

 

+1

 

erik_squires
16,897 posts
 

To follow on the already correct advice from @cleeds , it's a lot cheaper to provide a square wave output UPS than a sine wave.  Unless it specifically says "sine wave output" it probably is not.  

The square waves produce a lot of higher frequency harmonics (relative to 60 Hz) that make it through the power supplies.  Also make sure you don't have your system grounded through some other means, like using 1 device which is not battery powered but some that are.  It could do weird things in terms of the ground voltage.  This includes coaxial and USB connections. 

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