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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: It’s mad, mad, mad... electricity.

Post Subject: Some further thoughts about the StormTankPosted by Romy the Cat on: 1/25/2016

Well, the StormTank is currently is being sold for $30K. I am pretty sure that the regenerating and charging circuitry of StormTank and PurePower is identical. I do not mean they are the same but topology they are very identical and cost no more than any on-line UPS regenerator or let say roughly a couple hundred dollars. So, the main difference under the hood between StormTank and PurePower is the butteries. The PurePower uses the cheap sealed lead butteries, not the cheapest on own class but still not non expensive topological. The StormTank use good and more expensive Lithium Iron Phosphate butteries. The main advantage for LiFePO4 is that they live much longer then lead but basically it is the same. Now, StormTank claims that they have 1000A/H of batteries in there and this is a lot. More batteries means lower impedance of the whole battery back and means deeper filtration of in real time regeneration mode. The PurePower, in my own version, has a bunk of caps that shunt the battery. Intellectually it is very good in practice it has no effect. So, for all intended purpose StormTank sell us a 300 pounds of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries for $30K + a $200 regenerator.

Now, of cause whatever I wrote above is not very accurate. The true difference between StormTank and PurePower is all above + sound of their $200-worth regenerators. PurePower very much as well as StormTank might ask us to pay as much as they want as long their regenerator has right sound. If PurePower operates properly (a big if) then in my experience it produces VERY interesting sonic result. In fact, if the PurePower not broken then in most cases (not in all) there is not a whole a lot of difference between running it from wall vs running it from batteries. So, the most interesting question is what sonic attribute the StormTank’s regenerator has. Do you pay attention where I am leading you?

What I am trying to say is that in both StormTank and PurePower the regenerator cost let presume $200 and this $200 is responsible for 99.99% of what you might like and or not like in the units sound. The rest as Alex Ross says is the noise. So, what I am thinking. If the StormTank’s regenerator is sonically as good as the PurePower regenerators, or even if it is much better than PurePower, then StormTank need to lose the 250 pounds of the LiFePO4 batters, convert it to the desktop-sixe regenerator and to see it as it is Audio target UPS devise – very similar to what PurePower does. If the quality of the unit is determined by regenerator then there is no need to extort from a user $25K for the batteries that they user arguably do not need. I would not mind to listen the StormTank but I have absolutely no interest to bring 250 pounds of unnecessary batteries in my home.

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