As tough as it may seem to put down good money on something seemingly as uninteresting as a power supply, this is NOT the place to save money and go for cheap stuff!!
While H-B basses are nice and really value for money, I was disappointed by one of their power supplies, which was not as “isolated” as it should have been and created a lot of noise issues with digital pedals.
Now, I realize you are talking about an analog pedal (which is more forgiving), but I would still go for high-quality stuff, such as the Cioks or the Strymon Ojai power supplies.
You cry once and then won’t have to worry about that part of your equipment anymore!
This is solid advice. There are a lot of “cheap” power supplies that aren’t isolated well, I had my fair share of noise coming from the power supply. Cioks and Strymon are good. T-rex, Truetone, Fender, Voodoo lab are all really decent as well.
I use the Cioks stuff. I like the fact that you can get a switchable voltage on all outputs and up to 660mA per output. It’s also super thin so fits under most pedal boards.
You can also add to it if you need more power later.
For what you’ve got on your board, a Strymon Ojai sounds lime it would suit your needs perfectly. 500mA to each of the 5 ports, isolated, and one of the versions has 2 that let you switch between 9/12/18v although this effects output power.
I see - still it looks like a bit high end (-priced), although I get the point.
How about the MXR M 239 Mini Iso-Brick that is very similar (4pcs 300mA 9V ports +1pc 9/18V switchable 800mA port) for like half the price? I wouldn’t believe MXR to not be reliable
I get why they seem similar since they’re both isolated supplies, but I wouldn’t really put them in the same category.
The Cioks just offers more flexibility overall, like more outputs, switchable voltages on every output, more current headroom and the option to expand later.
The MXR is still a solid choice for a smaller, simple board.
Well now I’m looking at the Cioks Sol, Strymon Ojai R30, TRex Fuel Tank Chameleon and the MXR Mini ISO brick and all have 5 outputs with most capable for 9V and some for 12/18V, so dimension-wise there’s no huge difference, pricewise even 50%.
Now the Cioks DC7 beats them all (7 fully configurable outputs) however doubling the price vs the MXR and TRex and even nearly 1.5x compared to the Ojai R30 and the Cioks Sol.
Need to think, I need minimum 5 outputs (compressor, BDDI, Drop, tuner and either my overdrive or the Bass Servo) and at least one with 500mA+, and most importantly noiseless, next important aspect is size (less than 30-35mm depth required to fit under my expandable D’Addario XPND board.
It’s worth checking the amps output as well - it’s not just about voltage. Some pedals (particularly digital FX I believe) draw higher current than others, e.g. my Pod Express Bass draws up to 500mA at 9V.
The Harley Benton (Thomann’s in-house kit) power supplies seem to get good reviews and are very reasonably priced, so might be worth considering?
Well I have started the thread off by exactly this, the HB: “so far looking at Harley Benton Power plant Iso2 pro but wanna see if there’s any better option.“
TBH it has really like 95% positive ratings, out of 2034 there’s
5stars: 1729 (85%)
4stars: 248 (12%)
3stars: 31 (1.5%)
2stars: 15 (0.74%)
1star: 11 (0.54%).
And half of the 1 and 2 stars review mention the input power cord as cheesy, I believe it shouldn’t be hard to replace to a more proper one (12V, 2000mA, center negative).
But considering other options as well, wanna make sure to have something 100% noise free and future proof; just wondering if after so good reviews should I consider something that is probably better but costs 3-4 times as much.
Really appreciate - this is exactly the stuff I wanna avoid and really glad for any support to point out which ones to avoid, apparently even brand names / not cheapo ones can be misleading
Well this one is more budget friendly - however I’d go with the CS6 as much more flat, minus one output. But don’t expect more than 6 pedals so might be a fit, evaluating now
I use a couple of premium brands including the Providence Provolt9 PV-9 for practically half price from EMG Factory Outlet store on Reverb. I also bought a few Amazon’s cheapo I’ve not experienced any hum or noise issues at all. I’m pretty sure that the Harley Benton would be more than capable of delivering dead silent power to the pedals.
The only time I experienced noise coming from pedals is when I put the USB power on some that would allow it.
