One Spot vs. Fancy Power Supply?

[ryan summit]

ihate when cheaper copys of things i need come around
its so tempting
but you know chances are it ends up being a waste of money

[stripes]

yeah don't even fuck with that to save $50 or whatever. you won't miss the money in the long run.

[goroth]

The 1spot is a fucking well designed power supply. I was in a room with absolutely evil power coming out of the mains - it made my whole rig noisier. So I took advantage of the situation to test a whole bunch of different power supplies for noise - just cranked the amp, cranked the gain on the elements and didn't play anything. The quietest were the 1spot and the Cioks Pussy Power. Boss PSU and the cheaper Cioks models (Big John, Schizophrenic and Double Jack) were noisier. As much as it pains me, the 1spot may have been the quietest. It's rad. And it's designed by RG Keen who is a pedal legend. I run the Pussy Power because I need the isolated outputs and the routing options, but if you don't then you can't get a better power supply than the 1spot. There are however a lot of shit power supplies out there.

What is a shit power supply? One that supplies inadequate smoothing of the AC signal when the mains power is inconsistent, or has a bunch of other noise inducing stuff on the line. One that doesn't have adequate protection for your pedals in case of PSU failure. I also look at weight and heat dissipation. The first one you can test yourself, as described above. The second is hard/impossible to know unless you're a bit of a guru. I'm not. The third one is also something relatively easy to check - weight is self explanatory, I don't want a massive heavy thing weighing down my already heavy board. Heat is also relatively easy to check - check the max amperage, run a few badass pedals that will make the power supply work near its max load, let em run for a while and feel the PSU. If it is waaay hot then I get sceptical. It's not scientific at all (what consists "way to hot"), and something that feels hot may well be operating within safe parameters, but yah, it's my money and I can be unscientific if I want when buying a PSU!

I've been really happy with Cioks pro range, and the Voodoo Labs stuff is also really good. Haven't tested anything else as I'm also a sucker for marketing copy and I'm now convinced I've got the good shit and I don't need to engage my brain anymore.

</epic power supply post>

[Holy Schnikes]

CIOKS #1

Voodoo Labs #2

That's that.

[snipelfritz]

eventually i got to the point where i was connecting two chains on one one spot and trying to power something like 11 pedals,

This is what I do. No problems. No hiss because I run a noise gate in my effects loop (of course that's not on the board so I do use a wall wart for that).

[greyscales]

I'm by no means an isolated power purist. If I'm not running a big pedalboard or gigging, I'll use a 1spot without hesitation. A 1spot powers my DL4 pretty much all the time since it isn't on my main board right now. The huge cord on that thing just makes it really handy for rehearsing or around the house where you never know where an open outlet is going to be. The usefulness to cost ration makes it one of the best choices out there. Never go to a gig without one as a backup.

[ryan summit]

damn thorough evaluation boys(and girls)
thats awesome
so in lameass terms

1)onespot and a noise gate inloop with nasty peds

2)pussy power to deal with 18v s
or
3)voodoo labs

this seems like at least a few years of trial, error and wasted money to bypass just wanted to sum up and see if im gettin it
because ive just been rollin back the volume pedal a bit and im not ok with that
a)whats the best way to deal with 18v pedals with the onespot route
b)the fucking power strip.it tickles my ulcer.spending $$ on a decent one,plus onespot, plus noisegate puts me in pussy power range,huh?
and still have the mess of the strip blah blah

im not tryin to be a dick if its comin off that way,just thinking aloud(atype?)
this is what im dealin with

l to r: 9v/daisy chain,18v,18v,9v(for vox dl)
not sayin this wont work for someone, but its an antenna for bad energy in my situation
could you upload pic of your onespot setup

[Officer Bukowski]

Thanks Stripes. I'll have to mess around with it and see if I can get it to work right. I'm loving the verb so I don't want to just take it out.

As it just so happens I'm in the market for a new power supply because my DC Brick crapped out over the weekend. I have a couple of pedals and a tuner that don't play nice together so I'm going for an isolated power supply. Has anyone tried one of these:



10 isolated outputs for around $90? Too good to be true? Am I just chasing rainbows and unicorns? The only downside I can see over the Voodoo Lab PP2 is the wall wart adapter, which for me isn't a huge deal for the savings. Here is the website:

http://www.joyoaudio.com/en/product/show_174.html

Do they make like a 5 output version of this? That would be pretty rad if this thing is decent

[greyscales]

this seems like at least a few years of trial, error and wasted money to bypass just wanted to sum up and see if im gettin it
because ive just been rollin back the volume pedal a bit and im not ok with that
a)whats the best way to deal with 18v pedals with the onespot route
b)the fucking power strip.it tickles my ulcer.spending $$ on a decent one,plus onespot, plus noisegate puts me in pussy power range,huh?
and still have the mess of the strip blah blah

As for the 18v problem, you might want to consider having a builder (perhaps me or someone else) build you a charge pump in a small enclosure. These could get you 18v off a 9v source. Doesn't work perfectly for every pedal out there and might affect the amount of power available. But that is an option.

It sounds like you might want to consider getting a dedicated power supply rather than deal with so many wall warts and random supplies. It would be worth it for convenience's sake if you ask me. Using more than two supplies is messy and a PITA. It should eliminate the need for a noise gate as well, which can suck tone if you have to turn it up too much.

But this is just one man's opinion. Whatever works is always the best route.

[zRobertez]

It's easy, it's cheap. I've done up to around 12 pedals, I think, off of one. And I've had the same one for about three years.

[Jwar]

Is the Joyo really isolated or are they just saying that shit? If so, I buy soon.

[madmax1012]

i like my one-spot. it gets the job done relatively well and it was cheap. I'll get a dedicated power one day tho.

[aen]

ONE SPOT FOREVER. Does it make my EHX pedals that say "ONLY USE THE POWER SUPPLY THAT CAME WITH THIS PEDAL" noisy? Yep. As it turns out, the onespot is not the power supply that came with my EHX pedals.
Is an audience going to notice that bit of hiss? Only when ILFers are in the club.

[Helter]

Is the Joyo really isolated or are they just saying that shit? If so, I buy soon.

I think they're saying it isn't isolated

[mathias]

Is an audience going to notice that bit of hiss? Only when ILFers are in the club.

This is going in my signature.