- Aug 2, 2007
- 1,753
- 70
- 48
Last week I left the studio to go home for dinner and left a re-amp running.
I have a session with a whole album in 1 session, over an hour long.
When I came back later the level on the re-amped guitar tracks dropped in volume incrementally a few times.
This was very surprising until I did a bit of research.
I started the re-amp running at 5PM and it was about an hour and twenty minutes long so would have finished at about 6.20pm.
What had happened is everyone got home from work and put the oven on and my voltage had dropped a bit.
I got an APC line r 1200VA
http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=le1200i
I am using this for my amps only and it has made a real difference.
It indicates when it is either upping or lowering the voltage and provides me with a steady 230V. It certainly brings the voltage up at peak times such as lunch time, home from school and dinner time, and pretty much most of the time
Tube amps need good voltage to work properly and sound choked if they are running cold.
Here is a test (done at 4pm so not really full peak time).
I used a periphery cover from the practice room thread because it has lots of stop/start dynamics and this requires good voltage to push the cones.
I re-amped through the APC and then with APC bypassed (everything else left exactly the same).
There was a .4 to .5 db difference in level straight away and the non APC tracks sound choked for sure with the APC tracks jumping more on the chugs.
There is a more dramatic difference at real peak times too.
Very very happy with this unit for 60. Made a big difference.
Here is the test with TS808>6505 master 3.5 > Recto cab > 57 > API
APC off:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2133088/APC_OFF.wav
APC on:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2133088/APC_ON.wav
Level difference
I have a session with a whole album in 1 session, over an hour long.
When I came back later the level on the re-amped guitar tracks dropped in volume incrementally a few times.
This was very surprising until I did a bit of research.
I started the re-amp running at 5PM and it was about an hour and twenty minutes long so would have finished at about 6.20pm.
What had happened is everyone got home from work and put the oven on and my voltage had dropped a bit.
I got an APC line r 1200VA
http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=le1200i
I am using this for my amps only and it has made a real difference.
It indicates when it is either upping or lowering the voltage and provides me with a steady 230V. It certainly brings the voltage up at peak times such as lunch time, home from school and dinner time, and pretty much most of the time

Tube amps need good voltage to work properly and sound choked if they are running cold.
Here is a test (done at 4pm so not really full peak time).
I used a periphery cover from the practice room thread because it has lots of stop/start dynamics and this requires good voltage to push the cones.
I re-amped through the APC and then with APC bypassed (everything else left exactly the same).
There was a .4 to .5 db difference in level straight away and the non APC tracks sound choked for sure with the APC tracks jumping more on the chugs.
There is a more dramatic difference at real peak times too.
Very very happy with this unit for 60. Made a big difference.
Here is the test with TS808>6505 master 3.5 > Recto cab > 57 > API
APC off:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2133088/APC_OFF.wav
APC on:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2133088/APC_ON.wav
Level difference
