Running more than one power conditioner in a rack

[Malcolmallan]

hi everyone, I currently run my rack off a Furman power conditioner and it runs great, nice and quiet. I’d like to add a few more devices in a separate rack stack and I will run out of outlets, so was thinking of adding another conditioner. If I did this would the devices added to the second conditioner not be isolated and exposed to ground loops? How could I mitigate this? Thanks.

 

[rustolium]

This is a complex issue to deal with. There is a lot to research. Ground loops have a lot of causes. Simply having one of your Furman units connected to a effect unit that is improperly wired via the Rack rails will cause noise. There is nothing wrong with what you are wanting to do, you just have to realize there are other gotchas to look for. If you are running two conditioners in series you might need to look at issues there and know that just because you added a unit in series doesn't mean you have more amps. Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be until you have issues. Then you have a lot of studying to do. Hopefully, it will be quite and you will be able to just make music.

 

[Malcolmallan]

Thanks. Will take a punt at running the additional power conditioner in parallel and keep my fingers crossed.

 

[jb4674]

I would try them both ways. There's nothing wrong with piggybacking a line conditioner to another one to add more outlets. However, I would also look into getting one that has far more I/O so you don't run into a problem in the near future when expanding your rack.

I like Furman conditioners but, the fact that they don't offer one with more outlets within their classic series is a bit limiting.

 

[Serious Poo]

I daisychain two in my guitar rack. Zero issues, keeps the grounding loops and hum to a minimum.

 

[Coalface1971]

All that needs to be kept in mind is that these things are a power board with some mode filters attached to them. Any noise suppression will most likely get done by the unit plugged into the mains.

That is why you see a lot of pro racks with standard power strips run out of one of the conditioners with no issues. All it is doing is adding more outlets in parallel - just imagine the conditioner grew more outlets, cause that's what you'd be doing.

I'm sorry guys, any "magic" in a power conditioner is only done on the input. And no, they don't get rid of ground loops in your system.

 

[Serious Poo]

All that needs to be kept in mind is that these things are a power board with some mode filters attached to them. Any noise suppression will most likely get done by the unit plugged into the mains.

That is why you see a lot of pro racks with standard power strips run out of one of the conditioners with no issues. All it is doing is adding more outlets in parallel - just imagine the conditioner grew more outlets, cause that's what you'd be doing.

I'm sorry guys, any "magic" in a power conditioner is only done on the input. And no, they don't get rid of ground loops in your system.

FWIW when you avoid the need to run multiple power cables out if your rigs, you’re preventing ground loops. Obviously it doesn’t solve all potential sources of ground loops but it helps to avoid a big one.