I currently have just a few pedals, and use a cheap wall adaptor and daisy chain cable.
I also have them mounted on a DIY pedalboard, but I’m looking to tidy the whole thing up, get a proper pedal board etc.
My question is, the pedals I have at the moment are all 9v pedals. When looking for a suitable future proof pedalboard PSU to invest in without going mad on price, how likely is it I will need PSU outputs other than 9v? Is 18V or other voltages common or rare?
Advice welcome, thanks.
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I’m no expert, but I have noticed that nearly ALL the pedals are 9v. There are people here with way more expertise on that topic than me, and I’m sure they’ll chime in.
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Thanks @PamPurrs for the feedback .
I was hoping that would be the case, and I can just concentrate on finding a good PSU with a bunch of isolated 9v outputs only.
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All of my pedals are 9v. However one thing you will want to pay attention to is the current rating of the power supply outs. Getting one with a few higher rated ports (i.e. 500mA) is a very good idea.
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So I had a pretty pathetic run around with psu’s and then the good folks here clued me in to this. No it’s not isolated. No that hasn’t mattered. And it’s Amazon, if it doesn’t work for you return it. And chances are at some point you’ll come across some oddball pedal that requires higher volts or amps and you really don’t want to have to go looking for a new psu when or if that happens.
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Yeah having 300mA rated ports is nice. A lot of pedals out there need more that the 100mA you find on a lot of cheap PSUs.
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Had an 18v preamp a while ago. My zoom is 9v but 500 mA. I was looking at the plethora x5 and it’s 600 mA 
I think you would need an amp doubler cable for that one.
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Thats what I have, as a matter of fact I have 2 and I have no complaints. I have a few things that need the 500ma, and I am very happy to have all the rest 300ma instead of 100ma.
I do not have any pedals higher then 9v, but there are some, usually more expensive pedals that run 18v, and even 15v.
you may never need it, but those two ports, one is 500ma and the other 300ma are selectable between 9-12-15 and 18v, so they won’t go to waste if you end up plugging in a 9v pedal.
This PS is very reasonably priced, and overs more then anything in it’s price range, as far as I have found in my research.
They are probably not isolated as they claim, but I still get good clean power out of them.
Also, some pedals, and I have one are 18v, but have a comverter internally that steps up the 9v input. I am happy to have that on a 300ma bank then 100ma. I can’t say for sure, but one time I was using it when I first got it, and had it plugged into a PS that I returned, and it was very quiet and sucked the db from the chains I was playing with when powered thru that cheap PS. When I used wall chargers with the higher MA, I did not have that problem…
I was not as aware of the power aspects then, so I can only go from memory and speculate that was the problem, but that and some other slight issues got me to send that other PS back and replace it with this pedal as it looked much more like what I needed and would work with almost any variety of pedals I could come up with.
HTH
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BTW voodoo labs makes 3 incredibly useful y cables that can double your current, double your voltage or split one psu port to two effects.
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Thanks everyone for your help and replies to my original post, really great.
So great to have this group to ask questions and stop me making expensive mistakes!
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actually i just got a new preamp and its 15V, weird.
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Cool. What did you get?
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most pedals (maybe 99.9% ?) are 9v but other voltages exist. I don’t think it’s a big problem to get a 9v-only PSU.
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my never ending quest continues, but i think i might have the one this time, at least from what i’ve heard. the bassbone OD, which i somehow never heard of until recently.
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Cool! That thing looks pretty interesting.
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Yeah, I have come across a few pedals online that require 18v or 15v. I didn’t get them, not because of the voltage, just because they were not what I was looking for otherwise.
Yeah, if you go 9v only, you can always run a separate power cord for the oddball you may get that is 12, 15 or 18.
What is more important IMO and IME is the MA. I have 3 pedals on my board that would not work with the 100ma. One requires 300ma and two need the full 500ma, so make sure your PS choice matches the requirements for the pedals you have.
I did notice, the couple pedals that I saw that were 18v or 15v, they tended to actually come with a power supply, where as most 9v do NOT come with PS. Of course, that is not a given, it is just what I came across.
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Just wanted to revive this thread a little bit to provide some input on why it isn’t always a good idea to buy a cheap(er) PSU.
The issue is: digital noise (and hum, to some extent) when using (fully) digital effects pedals - there is some good info to be found here:
https://www.pedalsnake.com/blog/2016/09/dealing-power-supplies/
and especially here:
https://www.pedalsnake.com/blog/2016/09/dealing-digital-whine/#more-599
So, I own exactly two effects pedals, the UA Astra and the UA Golden Reverberator - both are digital pedals emulating various classic analog effects. Both pedals need 9V and 300 mA. To avoid any issues (see links above), I needed a PSU where all channels are fully isolated. OK, not wanting to spend too much, I went for this one:
It’s in the name and in the specs: isolated outputs; different voltage and power options; all for around 60 bucks…
Well, I immediately got a lot of very annoying whine when I supplied power to the two pedals - utterly unusable!!
My second PSU was this:
Again, fairly similar specs: 5 isolated outputs with 9V and up to 500 mA; this time, however, for roughly 200 dollars!!
But: silent as it should be - no problem whatsoever; no whining, no humming… perfect!
So, the lesson is: going cheap isn’t always a good idea! That said: the HB PSU is probably very good for most pedals, just not for fully digital pedals and the outputs are not as isolated as they need to be to be used for this kind of effects pedals (if you power more than one, that is!!)
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https://cioks.com/
I swear with CIOKS PU’s. Offers a lot of flexibility and it’s one of the few pedals that could power a Line6 Helix. If I recall correctly Strymon and 1 Spot also offer the same flexibility.
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I couldn’t bring myself to take a chance with the less expensive power supplies. I knew trying to chase artifacts from a power supply would drive me crazy. I also reasoned that a good power supply would be worth at least what I spend on one of the pedals it’s powering.
After going through a bunch of reviews I decided on a Truetone. Really clean and really happy with it.
Jörg, I looked up those pedals and… damn. You certainly went big when you decided what you wanted.
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Yes, these also have a great reputation… as does all the Strymon stuff (they also make great pedals, I hear).
Haha, you are right, Eric! In the end, I only need very few effects and these two pedals give me most what I need (chorus, flanger, phaser, vibrato/tremolo and a range of reverbs) and in high quality. My amp has a variable ratio compressor on all the time, and it can give me some grit if I need it - I figure I am all set for now!
Octaver, synth… hm, yeah, perhaps - those can get you some crazy cool tones, but I know I would only use them once in a blue moon in a real context - more “nice to have” than “need to have” 
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