Doing Things Wrong

KMise Guitar Pedal Power Supply & Cable

First, I am bound to state that I received this product at no cost for review. Having gotten that out of the way ...

This is a 2-amp negative-tip 9-volt power supply for guitar effects pedals. This supply has more than enough power to drive multiple effects pedals, and the 8-way split "Daisy Chain" cable lets you do just that. You can neatly power up your entire pedal board with a single connection.

This can save a fortune on batteries, but it also has an even greater benefit. Modern 9-volt batteries have a 100% chance of leaking. Forget one inside a device, and by the time you realize it, it is too late - the caustic mange from the battery will have eaten up the electronics. It is much safer to simply never use batteries. More and more pedals nowadays cannot even use a battery, they require a power supply, and this setup is ideal for that.

The main drawback of using a plugged-in power supply is line noise - the 60-cycle hum of alternating current. This supply does a good job of filtering out this noise and providing clean quiet power to your effects. That is a matter of how many filtering stages are incorporated into the design. In addition to noise coming in on the power line, there is 60-cycle ambient hum all around us. Both the power supply and the cables are shielded against this as well. This unit compares quite well to my much more expensive One-Spot supply; both are nearly silent.

I'll probably use this hefty power supply mainly to power my home-made portable amp. My old power supply for that was very noisy, this one is quiet, and has more than enough power to drive the amp with its on-board effects, and a few external effects as well. I needed an inexpensive polarity changer, as the power jack on the amp is center-positive. Now I can take the batteries out of the amp before they wreck it.

So save a little money on batteries, and a lot of money on the pedals those batteries would destroy, and get yourself one of these power supplies.

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Update:

I have found a spot in my house where this power supply is extremely noisy, almost screeching. My 1Spot is also noisy at this location, but not nearly as bad. At at other places, this unit is fairly quiet.


"RetroBrite" is a name for a process that restores old yellowed plastics to new. Many plastics yellow or darken over time. RetroBriting can reverse this aging, but with a number of caveats that, in my opinion, make it pretty useless. While the process actually does work - it reverses the discoloration - the effect is temporary. After a few months, the plastic will return to its yellowed state. When this happens, you can repeat the treatment, but at some point the chemicals involved are going to start to degrade the plastic.

My first experiment was whitening some yellowed tuner knobs, and it did work. With nothing more than sunshine and hydrogen peroxide, the knobs lightened considerably. That was several years ago, and today the knobs are as yellow as ever.

What causes this yellowing? It is variously attributed to sunlight, oxygen, bromine content, and other causes. While all of these things can contribute to it, none of them are necessary. Some plastics simply turn yellow with age, and nothing will stop it. In my experience, the real culprit is simply bad plastic, and the only real solution is replacement.

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