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Excess line voltage can kill an amp

Posted by koo on November 1, 2003 at 16:22:11

In Reply to: Eico HF-60 Amp Line Votage Protection posted by Chris Haedt on November 1, 2003 at 07:53:52:

The question makes sense to me.Though the problem has been solved by re-tapping the input, some audiophiles would neglect the input voltage and current to amp. Do measure your household voltage by digital meter(around 5V higher than analogue meter) ,better still input current,too and if excessive, need to use a step down input transformer, my experience with Fisher 80C was that with increase of 10% voltage above nominal, the input current was at least 30% higher, passing the point of "magnetic saturation". Not simply the problem of B+ voltage.

Another experience was with my video processor, burnt by re-switching, I found that a 220/220V isolating transformer would give higher than 230V(should be the case to cater for voltage drop at full load condition), aggravated by my household voltage of 230V, so, the input to the processor was 240V.

If B+ is higher than 500V irrespective of replacement of rectifier tube for dropping(be careful,lots for heat), I use 600V 47 uF Solen cap as the first cap, if space for such monster is not a problem.

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