Low Voltage on Circuit

Buckingham, try measuring other outlets throughout the house. If they are all low, chances are that you will have to get the electric company in on this one. They may have a pole transformer that is going bad. It might be failing with the heavy load of air conditioners and 1.35 million fans running full tilt. If that is the case, running dedicated lines won't do a thing for you.

If the problem that you run into does fall into the hands of your local electric provider and they don't seem to be too eager to correct the problem, you can have what is called a "buck boost" transformer installed. These come in various voltages but the ones that i've seen were primarily rated for 12 volts. What this does is "stack" another 12 volts on top of the voltage that is already present on the line. This would take you up to almost 125 volts, which is a little high in my opinion. Then again, my voltage is pretty much rock solid at 123 volts and i've never had any problems. You may have to look around to see what is available in terms of buck boost transformers if this is the route that you have to go. Sean
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I looked at the power consumption of the components in my tube based system.

The transport's rated consumption: 24 watts
The two tube dac's rated consumption: 24 watts
The all tube preamp's rated consumption: 26 watts
The 30 wpc tube power amp's rated consumption: 236 watts

Total power consumed at "full throttle": 310 watts

While your monoblocks are far more powerful than my little "antique", you MIGHT be able to get away with a 500 watt supply IF you turned things on gradually and never played the system very loud. Since this is strictly a temporary thing, it might be worth a shot.

The info that i sent you on that one piece states that it is actually good for 6-700 watts before the protection circuitry begins to clamp down, so that might offer a slight margin for error should you "goose the throttle" by mistake : )

The other alternative is to pick up an inexpensive but useable HT receiver from Best Buy / Circuit City. This would probably work under those conditions, give you something to tinker with for movies as a cheap secondary system while also giving you something to fall back on if your preamp or a power amp takes a dive. To me, this is a better solution than spending the money on the voltage regulator which might not work. Even if it does, when would you ever REALLY have the need for it once you move ??? Keep in mind that the more power that you pull from a regulator, the more the distortion goes up. Sean
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good luck and keep us posted. I'm sure that there are others in your situation. Some of them might not even know it : ) Sean
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HA HA HA... I'll have to break out the calculator for that one : ) While i can come up with a figure based on the factory ratings, who knows how accurate that is after some of the gear has been modified ? It's probably close enough to get in the ballpark though. I'll check and report back. Just don't call "Greenpeace" on me when i report the findings : ) Sean
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While looking at all of the components in that system, i found out that some of the custom pieces are not labeled for power draw. On some of the other stuff, such as the power supplies to run the various panels, i can't recall what was used. As such, i can't really come up with a grand total.

Since the amps are what draw the most juice, i figured that is what was most important. Some of these figures are based on calculations using the line voltage and fuse ratings on the individual amp. I had to do this since there was no total consumption figure listed on the chassis.

The two tweeter amps total 1600 watts of draw, the two mid amps total 2400 watts and the two woofer amps total 4800 watts. Add in the "whopping" FIVE watts ( !!! ) that my preamp draws and we come up with 8845 on just the backbone components. I'm sure that i would be well over 10,000 watts if everything would be factored in.

If you're wondering what "line level" components would add another 1200 watts of draw, i've got the electronic crossover, tuner, cassette, TT & vacuum pump, transport & dac and the four power supplies to run the mid and tweeter panels. As i've mentioned before, there is NO way to make this wiring nightmare look "pretty". The electrician that i had come in just kept shaking his head : ) Sean
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