Review: Eventide PowerMax

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The PowerMax is so reliable that, once you use it, there’s no going back to anything else.

(Image credit: Eventide)

This is gonna sound weird, but I kinda get excited over pedal power supplies. Mind you, this is coming from a guy who came from an era where a power supply consisted of 9-volt batteries and a bunch of wall warts strung together on a crappy power strip. So, when compact power supplies started to materialize for pedal users, well, you can imagine that for guitarists like me, it was the best thing since sliced bread! [*facepalm* —Ed.] So, among the many power supplies available for guitarists nowadays, the one I’m absolutely obsessing over is the Eventide PowerMax, mostly because they partnered with CIOKS — a premier Danish power-supply manufacturer — and it’s Eventide, the most preeminent audio engineering and innovative effects-processing company in the world.

So what’s so cool about PowerMax? Well, weighing in at one pound and being one inch thick makes it incredibly lightweight and slim enough to mount underneath most pedalboards without it scraping the floor. It’s a worldwide power supply (switchable 100/120/230V operation) that delivers 38.4 watts of clean, hum-free power and can capably juice seven high-current pedals (660mA @ 9V). That means up to seven Eventide H9 pedals or any power-hungry Strymon boxes — just to give perspective — can be properly powered from its seven fully isolated outlets, with each outlet being switchable, via mini DIP switches, to 9, 12, 15 or 18 volts. It also has a courtesy USB outlet for quick-charging your mobile devices. Neat.

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Paul Riario
Paul Riario

Paul Riario has been the tech/gear editor and online video presence for Guitar World for over 25 years. Paul is one of the few gear editors who has actually played and owned nearly all the original gear that most guitarists wax poetically about, and has survived this long by knowing every useless musical tidbit of classic rock, new wave, hair metal, grunge, and alternative genres. When Paul is not riding his road bike at any given moment, he remains a working musician, playing in two bands called SuperTrans Am and Radio Nashville.