Electric power in Europe

Most European countries have 220 volt, 50-hertz electric power. You can use a transformer to step the voltage down to 110-120 volt for use with American electronics, but the difference in the cycle rate is a problem for motor-driven equipment such as turntables (the lower cycle rate makes the turntable motor revolve more slowly than 60-hertz). Sometimes the turntable motor can be modified for the 50-hertz current, and sometimes it can be adapted to 50-cycle by the use of a different size pulley. Perhaps some of our European members (Ben Campbell, are you online?) can comment in more detail.

In Spain the power standard is 220 volt

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..

The only thing you ave to be careful, that some manufacturers in order to save their insane prices in Europe (ML 390s here 9.200 euro, equals 12.000 usd) and block black import, put a small chip inside their machines to allow run it only on 60hz. Thats a problem, and only Psaudio P300 would help you out. So, you really should check the manuals of each gear what it says.

Thanks to all of you that responded. Will contact PS Audio for more details on the 50hz issue. Hector

I just got back from 6 years in the UK. Rather than run stuff on a step down transformer, I had my line stage (Audio Research), DAC and CD transport (Classe) and amplifier (Bryston) converted at the respective manufacturer to 230V 50hz. Cost was about $100 USD per unit to do it this way and I'm doing it again now that I'm back in the States. It's definitely worth selling your gear over there rather than bringing it back (my mistake).

As for DVD's, buy a universal zone player over there. A cheapie will work fine. That way you can watch your US DVD's and buy/rent local DVD's. I didn't find that Region 1 DVD's to be easily available without paying more. If you still must have a VCR, buy one which can handle multi formats. They're cheap and readily available on the internet.

If you're going to be in a Spanish city, don't take too much stuff over as you'll be spending your time exploring the culture and traveling. Travel light and if you really need it, buy it over there. Unless you're out in the country-side, you'll be in a flat with neighbors and space is tight.

As for the job, nothing to think about. Go for it. I went over for 2 years and ended up staying for 6. My wife and I loved the experience and spent all our time and money on travel and food.

The current current standard for Europe is 220-240V, 50Hz delivered by a single live wire (brown), neutral (blue) and earth (yellow/green).
The national grids have not really changed, they just redefined the permissable standard. So, if Spain was 220V it probably still is.
If you got any tube gear do not convert it! This will be either expensive ( new input trannies) or bad (voltage splitter and dummy load). Once in Europe get yourself a mains transformer for a professional hammer drill (Hilti,Makita) as for some reason these run of 110V. They'll cost about 50-100 Euro.
Very popular with musicians using american amps and more reliable than the factory conversions.