Iso 5 noisier than daisy chained 1-spot?
Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 8:36 am
Hi All,
I have been using 1-spots and daisy chains to power my pedal board for a long time. Last year I wanted to upgrade stuff for a variety of reasons - simplicity (breakaway power cables are nice), neatness (can mount the supply under my board out of the way), and for some different power options (I've got a few pedals that can be run at different voltages). So I bought a Voodoo Labs Iso 5 to test it out, hooked up a few of my pedals and things seemed to be working fine. I wanted to set up a larger pedal board though, so bought a second Iso 5 so that I'd have plenty of extra power outlets. Checked that it was working by plugging in the same pedals, then built up my full pedal board and plugged everything in.
After powering up everything it was really noisy. So I figured that there must be something wrong with the cables. I took each pedal off the board one by one and checked the patch cables. All the patch cables were fine. I plugged directly into the amp to see if the tubes were going bad - nope, no noise there. Then I started unplugging pedals from the two Iso 5s. This was definitely causing the problem.
Both Iso 5s that I've got exhibit the same problem. If I try to power certain pedals (Empress Effects Tremolo - using the 100 or 400 mA 9V or the 12v output, Seymour Duncan Deja Vu on the 100 or 400 mA 9V output, Fulltone Deja Vibe on the 18 V output, Korg Pitchblack Custom using the 100 or 400 mA 9V outputs) they introduce a lot of noise into the signal. I could see maybe getting one bad Iso 5 unit, but both that I've got exhibit the same issues. Finally, I unplugged all pedals from the two different Voodoo Labs Iso 5s, and just connected them via One Spots (and the 18 V adapter that came with the Deja Vibe) and the noise is gone from my board again.
I've played around with this a lot by this point.
I pulled my multimeter out and tested the outputs on the Iso 5s, the 9 volts measure between 9.2 and 9.3V (same as my 1-spots), the 12 V measure around 11.9, and the 18 volt outputs measure close to 18 volts. I tried taking the power supplies out from the bottom of the pedalboard and physically moving it a few feet away from the pedals then plugging back in (read that some people have had problems with proximity to pedals) - no improvement. I've tried plugging the Iso 5s into different wall receptacles, and then into a Furman Power Conditioner - no improvement. There is significant noise whenever using either of these power supplies that isn't present with a cheap wall-wart when powering the listed pedals. The noise goes away completely when powering with cheap daisy chained wall-warts.
The noise isn't present when the iso 5 is powering all pedals. The Iso 5 works fine to power Xotic SP Compressor (9/12/18 V), Boss BD-2 (9V), Fuzz Face (9V), big box EHX Small Stone (9V), Mooer e Lady (9V), Mad Professor Snow White Auto-Wah (9V), Dunlop 535Q (9V)
Can anyone offer any suggestions for other things to try, or does the Iso 5 just not work very well?
I have been using 1-spots and daisy chains to power my pedal board for a long time. Last year I wanted to upgrade stuff for a variety of reasons - simplicity (breakaway power cables are nice), neatness (can mount the supply under my board out of the way), and for some different power options (I've got a few pedals that can be run at different voltages). So I bought a Voodoo Labs Iso 5 to test it out, hooked up a few of my pedals and things seemed to be working fine. I wanted to set up a larger pedal board though, so bought a second Iso 5 so that I'd have plenty of extra power outlets. Checked that it was working by plugging in the same pedals, then built up my full pedal board and plugged everything in.
After powering up everything it was really noisy. So I figured that there must be something wrong with the cables. I took each pedal off the board one by one and checked the patch cables. All the patch cables were fine. I plugged directly into the amp to see if the tubes were going bad - nope, no noise there. Then I started unplugging pedals from the two Iso 5s. This was definitely causing the problem.
Both Iso 5s that I've got exhibit the same problem. If I try to power certain pedals (Empress Effects Tremolo - using the 100 or 400 mA 9V or the 12v output, Seymour Duncan Deja Vu on the 100 or 400 mA 9V output, Fulltone Deja Vibe on the 18 V output, Korg Pitchblack Custom using the 100 or 400 mA 9V outputs) they introduce a lot of noise into the signal. I could see maybe getting one bad Iso 5 unit, but both that I've got exhibit the same issues. Finally, I unplugged all pedals from the two different Voodoo Labs Iso 5s, and just connected them via One Spots (and the 18 V adapter that came with the Deja Vibe) and the noise is gone from my board again.
I've played around with this a lot by this point.
I pulled my multimeter out and tested the outputs on the Iso 5s, the 9 volts measure between 9.2 and 9.3V (same as my 1-spots), the 12 V measure around 11.9, and the 18 volt outputs measure close to 18 volts. I tried taking the power supplies out from the bottom of the pedalboard and physically moving it a few feet away from the pedals then plugging back in (read that some people have had problems with proximity to pedals) - no improvement. I've tried plugging the Iso 5s into different wall receptacles, and then into a Furman Power Conditioner - no improvement. There is significant noise whenever using either of these power supplies that isn't present with a cheap wall-wart when powering the listed pedals. The noise goes away completely when powering with cheap daisy chained wall-warts.
The noise isn't present when the iso 5 is powering all pedals. The Iso 5 works fine to power Xotic SP Compressor (9/12/18 V), Boss BD-2 (9V), Fuzz Face (9V), big box EHX Small Stone (9V), Mooer e Lady (9V), Mad Professor Snow White Auto-Wah (9V), Dunlop 535Q (9V)
Can anyone offer any suggestions for other things to try, or does the Iso 5 just not work very well?