Wall voltage

[hywelg]

I bought one of the these about 5 years ago and never looked back.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AR15

You can find similar units on the used market for fairly cheap. This stuff is expensive new.

Unfortunately most units are for US 110volts, the UK 240volt variants are very thin on the ground. And very expensive.

[CHIP]

I can tell a difference in the OD tone when my line voltage varies. I can almost be sure after playing awhile that the line voltage is lower than 120VAC. (usually 118VAC). The amp just doesn't bloom and sing like it does otherwise. Just the other day, I noticed my tone was really sweet. I checked the line voltage and it was around 122VAC. Whether that's technically not enough difference to be noticed. I'm convinced that I can hear it.

[Structo]

Voltage regulators are usually very expensive since they use a special multi-tap power transformer to switch the voltage to keep it steady.

I know the Furman units are very expensive at around $500-$1000.

Tripp Lite makes some that are lower priced because they aren't specialized for musicians.

http://www.tripplite.com/en/products/pr ... riesID=838

For instance their 2400W power capacity is only $259.28

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... PDKIKX0DER

[SmallSpecial50]

....

[bluesfendermanblues]

i have a (possible) really DUMB question.

On the back of my Malaysian D-style amp above where the Powercord goes in it say's 240V.

I am in a 220V. country.

WHAT if any could this mean in terms of my amp functioning properly/unproperly?

I have had problems with this amp from the day i have aquired it.

please feel free to email me at vrijkaartjezoveel (at) gmail.com

THANK-YOU in advance

SS5

If you are in the Netherland (like your mail adress could indicate), You are not in a 220 v country, but a 230V country.

So you have no problem.

If your amplifier sounds too mellow, your amps voltages might be a bit too low. The Heater voltages should be around 6.3VAC.

[martin manning]

Hyweig (and anybody else wondering about this), I suggest you try an experiment. Borrow a variac and use it to power your amp and any other gear you use. You can then easily A/B a change in line voltage and see if it noticeably affects your sound. Over here a 5-10A unit is enough for general use, at twice the mains voltage you should be fine with half of that.

[mr_hankey]

i have a (possible) really DUMB question.

On the back of my Malaysian D-style amp above where the Powercord goes in it say's 240V.

I am in a 220V. country.

WHAT if any could this mean in terms of my amp functioning properly/unproperly?

I have had problems with this amp from the day i have aquired it.

please feel free to email me at ____

THANK-YOU in advance

SS5

On an unrelated note: I would recommend not to post your email address on websites without disguising it (write -at- instead of @, for example), because it'll be read by webcrawlers and you'll get massive amounts of spam.

[Structo]

I fixed it for him.

[DonMoose]

Thinking about ear fatigue got me thinking about thermal effects inside the chassis.

Does your sound ever get brighter over time?

If not, it's possible the voltage is a red herring compared with heating up the amp's guts.

[hywelg]

Hyweig (and anybody else wondering about this), I suggest you try an experiment. Borrow a variac and use it to power your amp and any other gear you use. You can then easily A/B a change in line voltage and see if it noticeably affects your sound. Over here a 5-10A unit is enough for general use, at twice the mains voltage you should be fine with half of that.

Thats what i am planning. I have my eye on a few on eBay and have decided to built it into my own box with digital voltage readouts for incoming and variac voltages. Seems sensible to me to include a fuse and a bypass switch.

The only thing that concerns me is that the wall voltage dropped from 240.5 to 237ish in the space of one song tonight so the previous behaviour of a gradual decline over the space of 2 hours was maybe not the norm. Possible that its all over the place which would make a manual control difficult.

[LeftyStrat]

Thinking about ear fatigue got me thinking about thermal effects inside the chassis.

Does your sound ever get brighter over time?

If not, it's possible the voltage is a red herring compared with heating up the amp's guts.

I had an old Ampeg VT-22 that would loosen up after about an hour. It's almost like after an hour the negative feedback would decrease and there would be a smoother transition from clean to dirty. It was very subtle, but at the time I was playing sort of on the edge between clean and dirty, so it was almost a feel thing.

I wonder if the heat caused the negative feedback resistor to increase in value.

[Reeltarded]

I sweep variac from 120 to the point where the pilot lamp goes black for volume control.

I would tend to agree that the difference you'd hear over a couple few volts is more likely thermal effects. Good thought there. Sounds reasonable vs my experience. I like some amps to be kind of cold too. When they get hot they sound more cathode followy. Heh

[LeftyStrat]

I sweep variac from 120 to the point where the pilot lamp goes black for volume control.

I would tend to agree that the difference you'd hear over a couple few volts is more likely thermal effects. Good thought there. Sounds reasonable vs my experience. I like some amps to be kind of cold too. When they get hot they sound more cathode followy. Heh

Yeah, I liked that amp cold. It had this narrow range I could control between clean and hair. After it was hot it didn't have the definition, just various shades of hair you couldn't really ride.

[SmallSpecial50]

...

[hywelg]

Thinking about ear fatigue got me thinking about thermal effects inside the chassis.

Does your sound ever get brighter over time?

If not, it's possible the voltage is a red herring compared with heating up the amp's guts.

My first experience noted above, I was very conscious of a loss of treble over time but that over that same time period the wall voltage dropped as well. Connected? not sure. Last night I didn't notice the same behaviour, though that might have been due to a lower starting voltage. On the first occasion it was at around 242v that i thought the amp sounded best, by the time it had dropped to 240 there was a noticeable loss of treble, last nights starting voltgae was a shade over 240v and it didn't sound as inspiring, though as it dropped, rather rapidly at one point to 237, the change was not as marked as that first drop from 242 to 240.

I feel there is more to be done here.