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**EnglishPaul** · 10-14-2007, 04:30 PM

OK. Firstly I have to say that my day job is sound and lighting, and so I know far more about mains sound equipment than 12v car equipment.

Over here mains power is 230v, in the USA it is 110v. An inverter is, as you thought, the equipment that turns a 12v dc supply into a mains ac supply.

The thing is that to make ac from dc, a sign wave has to be created. But most affordable inverters make a pseudo sign wave (sign wave like thing) instead of the real thing. But as far as I understand, audio relys quite heavily on sign waves (and video more so). So I was wondering in practical experience, whether people have used mains audio devices in their cars with an inverter, and whether they have had any problems.

Specifically I am less interested where an inverter is used to power a portable device such as an ipod, because there the ac is reduced to a dc voltage to charge and power the device. And dc to ac to dc either works or it doesn't; it is unlikely to produce audio interference.

10-14-2007, 04:30 PM	#3 (permalink)
EnglishPaul Still no avatar Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Sheffield Posts: 1,072 OS: XP SP2 Blog Entries: 4	Re: Inverters and audio OK. Firstly I have to say that my day job is sound and lighting, and so I know far more about mains sound equipment than 12v car equipment. Over here mains power is 230v, in the USA it is 110v. An inverter is, as you thought, the equipment that turns a 12v dc supply into a mains ac supply. The thing is that to make ac from dc, a sign wave has to be created. But most affordable inverters make a pseudo sign wave (sign wave like thing) instead of the real thing. But as far as I understand, audio relys quite heavily on sign waves (and video more so). So I was wondering in practical experience, whether people have used mains audio devices in their cars with an inverter, and whether they have had any problems. Specifically I am less interested where an inverter is used to power a portable device such as an ipod, because there the ac is reduced to a dc voltage to charge and power the device. And dc to ac to dc either works or it doesn't; it is unlikely to produce audio interference.