How SilentPower's Interference-Eliminating Products Helped Decoy Studios

SilentPower's Use in Decoy's Recording Studio

Decoy Studios is one of the UK’s leading recording and mixing studios, owned by award-winning mixer Cenzo Townshend. An array of successful artists have recorded there, such as Lewis Capaldi, Sam Smith and Ella Henderson.

SilentPower’s power-cleaning technologies can be applied to a huge range of industries, from educational institutions to medical practices. Since many SilentPower products, such as the OMNI LAN, provide jitter elimination, and therefore crisp audio details, it is no surprise that SilentPower’s products are very commonly used amongst audiophiles and those who own professional or home studios.

Music producers are often drawn to SilentPower due to being no strangers to facing persistent noise interference. Decoy Studios in Suffolk, England, are particularly aware of the interruption that noise interference can cause, and have recently implemented various SilentPower products into their recording rooms. Madison, a Studio Engineer at Decoy,  spoke to us, explaining that “immense care is taken to ensure that the power that we supply our recording equipment with is as clean and reliable as possible.”

Studio Engineer Madison's experience with SilentPower

M: “When Decoy studio was built, we took extensive time consulting studio build specialists and our electrician to ensure that we were working with the best power possible. We incorporated two separate “audio" and “domestic” circuits, so as not to incur any noise from units like fridges, microwaves, aircon etc. We also grounded all of our studio circuits with a large copper bar prior to connecting to the grounding spike, and made extensive use of “Moving Air” cable throughout the studio.”

"This has provided us with a very strong basis upon which our studio has operated for the past couple years, but of course there is always room for improvement, and with a retro-fit of a large collection of vintage analogue gear, including a 1971 Neve console, Fairchild 660 compressor and 3M M79 16 track tape machine, it felt sensible to further refine our studio power supply."

PowerStation

This is where SilentPower steps in. We first gave Madison a PowerStation to test out due to its versatility. The PowerStation is a widely applicable product, made for everyone who likes their audio interference free with technologies such as Active Noise Cancellation and Intelligent Ground. You can put a stop to RFI or EMI noise and enjoy pain-free audio – all from one solid, snazzy dark anodised aluminium power block.

M: “We now make use of the SilentPower PowerStation in our machine room. This ensures that our computer, ADDA converters and tape machine are all powered off of super clean, transient protected and independently isolated sockets. The use of independently isolated sockets is particularly important to us in our machine room due to the nature of the digital power supplies plugged in there, as well as the motors in our tape machine, and the risk that they present in introducing noise back onto our mains supply. The PowerStation helps to mitigate this, as well as provide our converters with the cleanest and most stable power possible, ensuring that we can keep the lowest noise floor, greatest dynamic range and most accurate stereo and depth of field.”

DC Blocker

The next SilentPower product to be implemented into Decoy Studios, was the DC Blocker, which is commonly used in audio / music settings due to its ability to eliminate amplifier transformer hum. Plus, it’s often the case that the bigger the amplifier, the larger the toroidal which is susceptible to residual DC voltage. No matter the amp, just add the DC Blocker at the IEC to stop DC from getting in.

M: “We have integrated the Silentpower DC Blocker into our setup, as we use a number of transformers to power 110V vintage American outboard equipment such as Pultec EQs, Universal Audio compressors and Ampex preamps. The DC Blocker helps to reduce the physical hum of the transformers, helping to reduce unnecessary noise in our recording spaces.”

GND Defender 

Next up, was the GND Defender, which looks similar to the DC Blocker, but focuses on eliminating unwanted ground loops. Issues with ground are a very common, yet annoyingly persistent and sometimes even dangerous if handled incorrectly. Those who attempt to lift ground unsafely risk serious fire hazards, and current solutions either jeopardise (i) both safety and EMI shielding (e.g. cheater plug), or (ii) EMI shielding. The GND Defender intelligently detects a ground loop, whilst also cutting the ground for that component. Unlike traditional “ground lift” adapters, the GND Defender does not compromise the unit’s safety earth. It auto-reinstates ground connection if a fault is detected, meeting professional installation safety standards.

M: “The SilentPower GND Defender is kept as a useful tool to safely earth lift any IEC based equipment when a ground hum occurs. Even in spite of our best efforts to create well grounded power, operating large sessions in a studio of this size and with so much equipment being used inevitably causes some ground hum issues. The GND Defender is a simple and reliable way of mitigating this and is often used to quickly problem solve when we’re in the middle of a session.”

iPower Elite 

Finally, the iPower Elite. This power supply was designed to deliver the smooth and silent power. It gives your streamer/DAC/amplifier all the silent, clean power of a battery with none of the hassle.

M: “We make use of the SilentPower iPower Elite to power a number of pieces of equipment, including our Founder, Cenzo’s master clock, ensuring that the clocking for his mix rig is running on clean and stable power. As his rig makes use of a number of Crane Song ADDA converters, it is essential to ensure that we do not incur any jitter or other clocking issues and ensure that we can maintain the best possible stereo image and depth of field in his mixes. We also have another iPower Elite which is used to power some of our “floating” Neve preamps, used around our various studio spaces. They provide stable, low noise 24V power, essential for the correct operating of vintage Neve preamps, and do not cause hum, buzz or other such interference which we have encountered previously with other PSUs. Their small form also make them very easy for us to move around.”

Madison and the team at Decoy have found an array of uses for SilentPower products in their studios, however, these are still only a small selection of the many use cases possible. Whether you have a personal audio/entertainment setup, or you’re a business that makes use of audio, visuals or power, you can very likely benefit from interference-free power.