US Gear brought into Europe

Hi all,

A good friend of mine is relocating back from the US into Germany. He has some good hifi kit (Audio Research amps, Pass Labs, etc) and is worried about the electricity differences.

I promised to ask, so here I am.
Do you know what will be the problems he faces bringing his kit over? Will he have to get the psus changed or is it a case of getting some plug adapters only? (somehow I think that's not enough...)

Also, is this something easy to do or will he have to send each and every piece of kit to the manufacturer?

Thanks for any help!
Jack

 

Assuming the kit does not have a switchable 110/220V PSUs, he'll need to buy a transformer to step down the voltage. The difference is frequency should be less of an issue.

There must a supplier of power conditioner that converts voltages. Send WM (wadia-miester) a PM, he used to modify US kit, he may know.

 

Thanks, Dev. I will ask Tony for advice and pass it on.

Cheers!
Jack

 

yes step down transformers are the simple answer ....assuming one can find ones that will supply the required current.

 

found this .....

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_In.../USA_110volt_Convertor_Transformer/index.html

 

That's a good find, even though it's UK plug and not the continental type. I found this:-

http://www.220-electronics.com/Transformers/trans/twowaytrans.htm

So, I imagine similar products should be available in Germany.

 

Pete, Dev,

This is really brilliant, thank you very much indeed!
Do you know how you would choose between models? What do you look for in the original kit to decide (or is it by bigger is better kind of philosophy)?

Also, since this is for hifi, is there a threshold below which sonics will get impacted by the quality of the stepdown?

Thanks a million, you guys are stars!
Jack

 

ARC gear does not have switchable PSU. You need to change the transformers (expensive). Pass may be different, you need to ask pass dealer about the woltage conversion. It may be as easy as setting jumpers or rewiring the transformer.

 

Hi Elberoth,

The links that Pete and I posted show devices with built in transformers. They are not just adapters.

 

Depending on whether or not your friend's kit is sensitive to mains impedance, a step-up transformer might not be such a hot idea. Given the calibre of the equipment, better to take his kit to a service centre and get it properly converted to UK spec. Expensive though.

 

Actually, he needs to step up the voltage. US is 110 V, Germany 230 V.

 

Of course Markus, I stand corrected .

What I meant was that the 230V supply going into the 110V input of the kit .

 

Really?

His unit is American and rated for 110v

His elec supply will be 230v in Germany.

Thus to avoid blowing up the unit, he needs to step down the 230v to 110v before supplying to the unit

I'm no sparky but that's my understanding

 

Not sure about my concern but some kits from the states are set at 60hz cycle so make sure of that too.

You can buy a used PS Audio P300,600,1000 or 1200 from the states which will give you the option to set the input voltage either 110 or 240V but will only output max 120V. Also the sine wave can be adjusted to suite the equipment. The older PS Audio power regenerators can be had cheaply now.

Cheers

 

That would be my reading of the situation.

 

I have found that some North American power amps give off quite a loud hum from the transformer when run on 50Hz mains. This disapperared when I ran them on a 60Hz supply.

Also some of the step-up / step-down transfomers aimed at domestic applications make quite bit of noise.

When I returned from Canada I had my Sim Moon power amp converted from 110 to 230 and it was not cheap! (I imagine this only required a rewiring of the connections to the transformers)

Given the benefits claimed for isolation transformers, a step-down might actually help. When I went to Canada and wanted to run my UK kit, I asked about the impact of using a step-up transformer and was told by one or two of the manufacturers (including DPA) that it would not hurt and could even help- especially if I used an isolation transformer and not an autoformer. I'm not sure whether a step-down introduces any additional problems.

When I was thinking of putting together an isolation transformer I aquired a 2KvA 110:230V step-up/step-down transformer under the impression that it was 230:230V:shame:. This should be big enough for any amp (if it's not I lalso have a 110:230 5KvA autofomer bought a silly idea to correct the first mistake!). If your friend is competent and wants to try using it let me know. It's very heavy so it would need to be picked up

 

Sorry, just noticed you are in Germany. I go there reasonably often, but I'm not carrying this as hand luggage!

 

Hi all,

Thank you for the suggestions and advice.
Parkandbike thank you for the offer, I will tell my friend but of course lugging that kit around is totally out of the question!

I think either a step-down or the ps-audio block seem the best approaches if as Elberoth says the alternative is heavy "surgery" and an expensive one by the looks of it.

One would think that with all the advances in technology that we have these days something like electrical power would have been standardised by now... oh well...

Cheers everyone!
Jack

 

PS Audio is an interesting alternative. I have personally used P-300 powerplant with US-imported gear (Theta and Krell - both hard to convert; Theta becouse of different transformers, and Krell because of freq sensing chip inside) on 230V supply.

There are 4 problems with them though:

1. Power consumption - they eat twice as much power as they produce, meaning that P-300 will draw some 600W from the wall.
2. They are current limiting (they are rated 300, 500, 600, 1000 and 1200W respectively), which means that they are not really suitable for power amps.
3. They run extreemly HOT.
4. Some of them (P-300, P-500) have fans which are audible.

You may also use a step down transformer instead (provided that the gear does not have a freq sensing chip inside, like Krell and Mark Levinson gear). The problem with step down transformers is that they tend to give the rated output voltage ONLY when fully loaded. The less load you put on them, the higher the output voltage. With a 200W step down transformer, and a 50W load, you may see as much as 5-7% increase in the output voltage. It some cases (2kW transformer and 50W load) the voltage may become excessive for the safety operation.

You MAY find a stiffer transformer (meaning that it will output almost the same voltage irrespective of load) but those are MUCH more expensive.

Hope this helps.