December 2019

Great Audiophile Gift Ideas For The 2019 Holiday Season
Enjoy the Music.com celebrates our 14th annual gift ideas to give your audiophile!

Goal Zero Yeti 400 Lithium Portable Power Station

  Our Senior Editor Tom Lyle has always been a proponent of some sort of power conditioning for one's high-end audio system. If you're tired of the low quality power coming out of your outlet, your system only sounding good at night, or want to realize the great sound capability of your gear by going 100% pure sine wave battery supply, then the Yeti is for you! Better still, it is priced right and you can charge it via an optional Yeti solar panel.

No matter how "good" the power coming from your wall receptacle might be, unless your locale power company has set up a transformer in your yard, you are not only sharing power with many others, the power that you are using has traveled quite a distance before it finally arrives at your home. During that journey the power picks up all sorts of electronic detritus, and that electronic debris will affect how your system sounds. Even if one uses a simple passive power conditioner, one that passively filters the power that comes from the wall,, it is better than nothing, especially when powering one's sensitive front-end equipment – preamps, DACs, etc.

I don't know what led me to begin searching outside the audiophile world for a battery power supply, but eventually I came across the website of a company called Goal Zero. This USA company's products are made with the camper in mind. On their website they say that their products are perfect for powering cameras, small refrigerators, laptop computers, and outdoor lighting. I thought, if they are touting their "Power Stations" for these items, why not a high-end stereo system? Goal Zero has all sorts of equipment for outdoor types who wish to use electrical devices while they are out-of-doors. They even sell a 50 Watt Monocrystalline solar panel ($149.95) to recharge their power stations for those who want to go green (~12 hours to fully charge the Yeti 400).

The Yeti 400 with a Lithium battery provides 300 Watts, yet can supply 1200 Watts of surge power. As surge power is a specification that is related to when an electrical component is activated, it doesn't apply to high-end audio as these components have relays to prevent this initial surge, and don't fully power up until after their power stabilizes. The Yeti 400 can be chained with other Yeti 400 battery power units for longer runtimes. And although the Yeti 400 seemed like a good place to start, their Yeti 3000 would be even a better match because with this unit I could power my entire system. The Yeti 3000 provides 1500 Watts of power. It takes 25 hours to fully charge from zero, but both the Yeti 400 and Yeti 3000 can be connected to the AC wall receptacle, so it is always charging, as long as the usage is less than the incoming wattage.

Recommended by Enjoy the Music.com's Senior Editor Tom Lyle.

The Goal Zero Yeti 400 Lithium Portable Power Station is available from Amazon and, considering it weights 29 lbs, you'll be glad it ships for free.

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