Power line surges and lightning strikes can instantly destroy expensive audio and video gear. Other anomalies can have longer-term negative effects, deteriorating electronic components at a microscopic level leading to unexplained hardware failure and premature investment in replacement equipment. Electrical noise can even interfere with audio and video signals causing quality problems that can be seen as well as heard.

Power anomalies — high energy voltage transients, electrical noise, voltage irregularities, and power outages — can occur at any time, on any power system, anywhere. In fact, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) reports that the average, well-managed electrical supply system in North America experiences about 8.8 hours of power outages annually, or a reliability rating of about 99.9 percent. But like an iceberg, power outages are only the visible part of the threat. When all other power disturbances are factored in, the average reliability level drops to 99 per cent. That’s approximately 79 more hours per year in which the quality of electrical power is not satisfactory for the needs of sensitive electronic gear. And that’s just on the utility company’s side of the electric meter. Once inside a facility, almost every “electrical neighbor” contributes to troublesome electrical pollution. Fluorescent lighting ballasts, electric motors, electronic controls for HVAC equipment, computer power supplies, and even the signals from cell phones and commercial broadcast stations create electrical disturbances that can spell big problems for your audio and video equipment.

These are all power disturbances you don’t see – and they are hazardous for equipment that requires clean, quality power in order to perform at peak efficiency.

Power anomalies wreak havoc with professional audio and video equipment over both short and long term. And that will reflect poorly on you, whether your equipment is used in recording, broadcast, live or theatrical performance or corporate or commercial presentation.

The audio and video industries at the professional level expect electronic equipment —preamps, amps, mixing consoles, digital audio or video workstations, digital signal processors — to function reliably, with no failures, and at the highest levels of performance. That’s why it’s necessary to think about two kinds of power issues — power protection and power quality.

And that’s why you need to know ETA Systems. We’re dedicated to providing audio and video professionals with the most comprehensive and effective solutions for the distribution, control, management, and conditioning of AC power.