Torus Power Tames Unruly Electricity in CEDIA’s Best Integrated Home, Level III, Installed by Land & Sea Entertainment

by Kyle Glass | Nov 23, 2020 | Torus Power

When homeowners update their home’s technology, Torus Power delivers optimal performance though power management and power isolation.

A home teeming with cutting-edge technology takes some extra TLC to ensure reliable and consistent operation. It’s a philosophy that integration firm Land & Sea Entertainment of San Diego promotes and provides to every high-end smart home project. When it came time to start planning this one, Land & Sea Entertainment owner Terry Morton knew it just had to start with Torus Power. Morton immediately reached out to Ross Whitney, Torus Power’s technical guru, to do the equipment load calculations and start planning out the power foundation for this project. “It’s great when we are brought into a project in the planning stages,” says Whitney. “It gives us a chance to review the power demand needed to optimize system performance and ensure that nothing is overlooked. In this case, the Torus Power WM 100 BAL TVSS Wall Mount isolation transformer was the right fit for the job.”

Protection for a Power-Hungry Home

Carefully curated AV, networking, and control solutions contribute to the overall convenience and enjoyment of a smart home environment, but “even the best devices on the planet won’t work as intended if you don’t properly manage the power coming into the environment,” says Morton. “We know that we have to protect high-performance products from damage caused by lightning strikes, power surges, and other electrical anomalies, but not everyone understands that performance and reliability are the real added benefits that Torus Power brings to the table.”
Hidden problems, noise artifacts, and voltage fluctuations in the electrical system can plague a household and is the reason why the wall-mounted isolation transformer from Torus Power helped Land & Sea Entertainment win CEDIA’s 2020 Best Integrated Home, Level III award for a particularly power-hungry project in Reno, Nevada. “The owners never see the Torus Power isolation transformer, but it’s one of the most important elements of the home,” says Morton “It’s so critical to the operation of electronic systems that we make it a priority for every home, not just this residence.”

System Updates Demand Better Power Management

Installed in a specially designed utility room during a major renovation of the home, the 100-amp wall mount panel works behind-the-scenes, responding in less than 5 nanoseconds and managing surges up to 80,000 Amps. The panel incorporates a special design using a commercial grade TVSS surge model on the input side of the isolation transformer and the company’s renowned Series Mode Surge Suppression (SMSS) module on the output side of the transformer. The Torus Power unit also provides noise filtration of EMI and RFI interference and isolates all the sensitive electronic equipment from voltage line noise and artifacts. All of this adds up to the ultimate protection and performance for all the electronic components in the system, including a state-of-the-art Crestron control system, AV distribution system feeding content to 20 displays and dozens of loudspeakers, security system, and high-speed networking system. These and other systems replaced technology that Land & Sea had installed in the home in the early 2000s—a project that also received a CEDIA award in 2003.

But times change and so does technology, making the Torus Power WM 100 BAL TVSS all the more essential to the year-long tech overhaul. As Morton explains, the update was so extensive that the home not only needed protection from electrical disturbances but also a better source of power. “We worked with the homeowners to update their obsolete 400-amp main electrical panel to today’s electrical code and safety specifications,” says Morton. “Plus, to adequately feed 15,600 watts of power to 22 James Loudspeakers in a 10.4.8 Dolby Atmos configuration in the theater, as well as another 14,000 watts of power to 17 JBL Synthesis and James Loudspeaker speakers in secondary media location, we loaded equipment racks with commercial-grade DriveCore amplifiers from Crown.” Needless to say, this equated to a significant power draw—all the more reason to add the Torus isolation transformer to power and protect every circuit.

The Foundation of an Exceptional Smart Home

As it protects, the Torus Power wall mount unit delivers an even, consistent flow of electricity to an array of sophisticated devices and systems that make this residence such a show-stopper and exemplifies the importance of proper power management and isolation to the well-being and operational excellence of a smart home environment.

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