Is the power in your house dirty enough to affect your Home Theater experience? We quantify how to determine if you have dirty power and how to clean it up. We also look at our favorite Home Automation Scenes, read your emails and go through the week’s news.
Dirty Power
Howard’s email got us thinking about power and power conditioners. There is a lot of talk about dirty power and how it affects the life and performance of your electronics. Some say you will see and hear a difference. Others say it doesn’t make a difference unless the power is really dirty.
How do you know if you have dirty power? You measure it with a Line Noise EMI Meter that measures the harmonics or dirty electricity on your home’s electrical wiring in millivolts. Acceptable readings are generally between 200 and 400 mV. When you get over 800mV some sort of power line filtering is needed. Well at least that’s what some experts say.
The Line noise meters aren’t cheap. The one we use costs about $130 (AlphLabs Inc Power Line Meter). If you have dirty power, a good power conditioner will cost you anywhere between $50 and $150. There are some that run about $500. Almost all provide surge suppression so for that alone you may want to consider one for about $50.
Real World Results
We measured the line noise in Ara’s house in two places. The room where the podcast is recorded and he has his music listening setup as well as the family room theater. The podcast studio is an addition that was done about 15 years ago. The family room was original construction from 1992. The results were a little surprising:
Podcast Studio - The Line Meter measured 150 millivolts which is good. The socket that was used was one the above the one used for a Furman power conditioner. The measurement from a socket on the power conditioner was 160mV. For fun we unplugged the Airport Express, audio amplifier, and the mixing board used for recording the podcast from the power conditioner and remeasured. The measurement dropped to 130mV in the unconditioned and power conditioned outlets.
Family Room Theater - The Line Meter measured 30 millivolts which is excellent. It also measured 30mV for the power conditioned outlets.
Conclusion - Ara’s home has clean power! And the power conditioner didn’t have to do anything to the power.
Can You Hear and See the Difference?
This is a touchy subject similar to Hi Res Audio. In our tests, there was no perceptual change in sound or picture quality using a Furman and Belkin Power conditioner. Which makes sense since the filtering essentially left the low noise levels untouched. Do we have power conditioners? Yes, because they act as high falootin power strips and they don’t cost much more than a quality power strip.
If you have very dirty power or even grounding issues, a power conditioner will definitely clean it up and improve your experience. Dirty power can be caused by a number of different electrical issues, some examples of these issues include:
If you suspect you have dirty power it may be a good investment to buy a similar meter and know for sure. If you have some buddies you can all chip in and buy one together. When one is done you can ship it to the other buddy if they don’t live nearby. You can ship it anywhere in the US for about $8 with the USPS “If it fits it ships” box.
Our Home Automations/Scenes
Home automation has three basic functions:
Here is a list of some of the time based automations we use in our homes:
Here is a list of some of the sensor automations we use in our homes:
Here is a list of some of the seasonal automations we use in our homes:
We also have a scene in the projector room that manages the lights for watching a movie. I tried to tie it to the play/pause button on the harmony remote and just got frustrated with it. Instead there is a button on a separate controller that is a toggle for movie watching on and off. Super simple but not as fancy.
What are your favorite automations?