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A question of power

I have never used power conditioning as have never felt the need to. But as I move up the fod chain of equipment (still not very high) I am thinking about what unregulated power does to equipment.

In testing for the power at my home, I exceed 120 v quite regularly! I know most people have a problem with sag, so this is where my question is focused... does an overage (say, up to 131 v, which is the highest reading I have over the one day I tried it) do bad things? To the sound, to the life of the equipment, whatever? Might it even improve the sound or is that wishful thinking? Incidentally, the lowest reading I got yesterday was 127 v.
kck

Showing 1 response by golixe7df

golixe7df
55 posts
 
AC voltages are given in the DC equivalent (ie the DC voltage necessary to do the same work) or RMS. This is done buy taking the peak voltage of the AC current and multiplying by the square root of 2 (0.707) . Thus the true peak of 120V AC is
120 divided by 0.707 and equals 169V. The full phase is then
0V to +169V back to 0V to -169V, resulting in a total voltage swing of 338V!

But unless you get audible spikes that go much higher than your 131V or you run your system flat out all the time there isn't much to worry about.
Might not sound very nice but it ain't gonna fry your kit.
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