Located in the New Mexico desert halfway between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is Modern Fidelity’s Research and Development Laboratory. The facility is unique in that the compound is 100% off the grid. It is here in the beauty of the desert that our Senior Engineer, Steve Burgess and company founder Gary Leeds developed the MODFI-7 wireless speaker. The land has a distinctly spiritual feel to it, far away from the hustle of city life and the distractions that can interfere with the process of perfectly melding the art and science that allowed us to create the incomparable Modern Fidelity listening experience.
For those of you into alternative energy tech, the compound is powered by 6 kW of PV (Photovoltaic) solar panels in the form of three adjustable arrays and one 2.5 kW Jacobs wind turbine mounted on a 60 foot tower. A collection of maximum power point tracking charge controllers and PWM voltage regulators produce the DC voltage needed for the inverters and battery energy storage system. Sensitive electronics and test equipment in the audio lab is supplied by a 4 kW ultra-clean power inverter, while the workshop is supplied by a separate 4 kW inverter. The battery system is made up of (16) industrial class flooded lead acid monoblocs arranged in 4 redundant strings to create a 40 kW/hr energy reservoir, approximately three full days of energy storage based on critical load calculations. Emergency backup power can be supplied as required by an 8kw propane fired generator.