Electric power in Europe

All i know is that france makes 75 % of its energy from nuclear fuel. It is facing pressure form other Pro gas turbine and coal counties to convert back. It is true nuclear energy is not as cheap as once believed... but in the wake of what going on in the mid-east it makes you wonder how much better off we would be with nuclear? We quit after the 3 mile island thing, and don't get me started on wind power and other such green things, they wont work, I need nuclear to power up these monos. ARGH,
I've have a bad day, need to de-compress. chucker

I want to hear those nuclear monos!!!

Keep your gear!! It will work flawlessly on converted sources!
My entire system is American (Wadia, McIntosh, Revel) and I never had the slightest problem here in Germany. I know that Spain is no problem either.
Good luck with the job!

Contact your manufacturers to see if it is easy to change to 220V, especially for your amp as high current transformers are expensive. Buy a high quality transformer for all your other equipment. The 220v is single phase (hot, neutral and sometimes a ground). In France there is often only 2 holes for household applicances. Buy a Radio Shack polarity checker and wire the transformer so that the US standard outlet checks correctly with the tester. Mark the plug of the transformer to insert it ONLY this way and do not use it on any other oulets without checking for correct connection. You will also need to do this for computers. Your TVs are worthless in Europe. Also DVD players will be a different norm. (You can carry yout TV and DVD player and connect it as above but you will ONLY be able to play the DVDs you carrry with you.)

A small correction to the things mentioned above. All European countries now conform to the 230V standard. However most people tend to forget, and still refers to it as 220V.

If you have equipment that can be set for 220, then they will not have any issues with 230V - same thing applies if you have a 240V setting (UK was the only country on 240V)

As in the US, voltage will be going up and down, so you can expect anything from 200 to 240V.

Many countries do not have legal requirements on ground installations except in citchens, so outlets with two plugs are the most common installation, even though new EU requirements does state all new installations should be done with a third ground wire.

A step down transformer can be used for 90% of your gear, including household, but you should remember that there is powerloss in all transformers, and power is generally a lot more expensive over here, so it may not be worth while to do it in the long run.

Finally, as mentioned there is the regional coding on DVD's, so check if you can hack your dvd before bringing it. Region 1 dvd's are pretty easy to purchase in most countries so there should be no worries for bringing it back home.

Hope this helps and got luck on the assignment..