I have just seen two mixers Alto ZMX862. One was powered by 18V 1A DC and another one by 18VAC 1A. What are benefits in using DC or AC?
All electronic gear runs on dc internally, so the only real question is do you convert the ac from your wall externally with a wart or internally? Externally means you take heat and weight out of your unit, which is usually good. Also, if the converter fries you only replace the wart, not the whole thing. So I'd go with the dc in.
AC/DC forever! No imposters! Never heard of AC/AC. Are they from Australia, too? Anyway, Trurl said it perfectly. That's pretty much it. You can have an external converter or internal converter. When you think about it, the external one would be better for audio as there would be less interference with internal parts, but these days almost all racks have internal converters nevertheless. So I'd say - it doesn't matter.
the elektron machinedrum mk1 actually uses ac/ac (no idea why they choose to do this). now here's the fun part: they stopped making replacement psu's... and finding a replacement is near impossible, took me several months to find one.
I have a Novation Nova laptop like this. The PSU connects with a 5 pin midi din plug, seriously. I have the documents for making one DIY, but i'm not in any rush for a good fire.
Alto’s technical support has just confirmed that and it depends on geographical location where the device was being sold.
For the sake of curiosity, I clearly remember that E-mu Proformance module was supplied by external AC/AC adapter, while all the other modules/synths I owned were AC/DC or AC (internal converter).
It was nice in 1994 when I used it as "training gear" compared with all the other stuff of the period, but now it seems to me pretty poor. I still have it somewhere, I think it will stay there for ages.
it might be cool as a lo-fi character piece to use in a track. Maybe even degrade the sound, instead of trying to improve it. But if it did not say E-Mu on it, they would be selling them on used sites for like 10 or 20 dollars. People put a lot of stuff on reverb.com like this, that they aren't really "Actively selling". They just have a "pay me to drive somewhere to go ship it" price; or something so outrageous that if someone is offering, of course you would take the money. Last edited: Nov 1, 2023
Btw when you see an ac wart to an ac in that just means the step-down voltage transformer is in the wart and the ac to dc rectifier is in the unit. There's always one of each. It's just a question of where it ends up at; in the cord or in the box.
I have Aphex Aural Exciter and one Vocoder both powered by AC over AC to AC transformer. In my experience AC to AC transformers are more durable than AC to DC, in fact I never had to replace one of those transformers in 35 years.
