Surge protection for Qute2 and mains wired (dLAN);
Posted by: JSH on 11 January 2014
Two questions if I may.
My computer and its peripherals all go through a surge protected trailing lead socket. Should I connect my Qute through the surge protector too or is it OK straight into the wall?
Second, I'm thinking of trying a mains wired connection to my Qute2. (A fully wired system is not on here and the wireless connection shows up as poor or marginal) The manufacturers say that these should plug direct into the wall and may not work through a surge protector. If I plug one of these into the Qute via the ethernet outlet am I potentially putting it at risk of surge damage?
If this is not the right place to ask these sorts of question, my aplogies
Posted on: 11 January 2014 by Cbr600
Hi jsh, what part of the world are youin, and is there a specific surge issue in our area?
Generally its better to connect Naim gear direct and not through such items, as they tend to create "dirty" mains and introduce harmonics etc which diminish SQ.
I assume the second query relates to network over mains?
These are not recommended as the signal can be diminished by the power element of the system
Posted on: 11 January 2014 by JSH
Hi CRB
Thanks for your help.
Wiltshire in the UK. No there's not a particular surge issue as far as I am aware, but I have received this advice relating computers from different people. And of course there's a market in surge protectors, but that could just be snake oil. I'll plug the Qute straight into the wall then.
Yes, I am referring to network over mains (wasn't sure of the correct name). So to be clear, what you're advising is that a weak wireless is better than a network over mains. To be clear the wireless signal shows as "poor" or "marginal" on the Qute site but I don't suffer from breakups very often
Posted on: 11 January 2014 by Cbr600
Living in rural Ireland, our power is sometimes less stable. I tried using an APC block with surge protection and ups power, specifically to protect my HDX from power outages, but it really does detract from the SQ.
In terms of network over mains, i know that some years ago this was played around with in hospitals (my business) as a means of patient connected data on mains forr monitoring. The results were poor with interference issues, so never really caught on.
In my home set up i have a main system with NAS and also a second system with UQ2 streaming from NAS. The wifi in the UQ2 area is not great and i wasnt able to hard wire network, so i went for using wifi network extenders to boost the ignal. This works much better
Posted on: 11 January 2014 by JSH
Thanks again. I think my son has a repeater so perhaps I can persuade him to lend it to me to see how it goes
Posted on: 11 January 2014 by dayjay
I'm using a network over mains into my uq2 and I've had no problems at all. Its extremely stable and I can't hear any deterioration in sound compared to wifi which is flaky. They are cheap enough compared to the rest of your kit that its worth having a listen first imo
Posted on: 12 January 2014 by JSH
Interesting, thanks.
Basically its suck it and see, so that's what I'll do, borrowing a few bits here and there
Posted on: 12 January 2014 by Zipperheadbanjo
Where I live we have serious Thunderstorm issues and power outages in the Spring / Summer so not having surge protection isn't really an option I can live with given the value of my hifi gear.
I did a lot of research and listening and ended up purchasing an Audience product which to my ears actually improves the SQ of my SuperUniti. The product is called Audience Adept Response. I have the AR2P... it simply plugs into the wall and has two outlets. I plug my Superuniti directly into the AR2P and a Totem Urth Power block which I plug into the other outlet on the AR2P. The power block powers all the other gear in my stack. Thus all my gear is shielded from power surges.
The unit costs about $900 (Canadian)... you can certainly buy more expensive units from Audience, but the AR2P works fine for my purposes. If I had a lot more gear, I'd probably need to look at one of the 6 outlet units from Audience which retail for around $2500.
Posted on: 12 January 2014 by JSH
Wow. Looks a serious bit of kit, but beyond my budget or to be more precise more than I could justify to my wife for a plug in the wall!
