What does a stepdown from 220v to 110v do to sound quality ?

C

Chris

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 16, 2002
Messages
82
I'm in Asia, and I got a good offer for Creative speakers.
The only catch is it is designed for 110v. Since I'm in SE Asia, and we use 220v, I have to buy a stepdown transformer. The question is how does it affect sound quality ?
I read once that there is a big impact, but I have no idea how & why.
 
Chris said:
I'm in Asia, and I got a good offer for Creative speakers.
The only catch is it is designed for 110v. Since I'm in SE Asia, and we use 220v, I have to buy a stepdown transformer. The question is how does it affect sound quality ?
I read once that there is a big impact, but I have no idea how & why.
Click to expand...

Only reason I could see if that the quality of the power coming from the step down converter would be less than that of original 110v A/C, thus possibly affecting audio quality because of the poor power quality.

Thats the only thing that should cause any issues.
 
The voltage would ruther be reduced for the circuits. It is of no concern..
 
You shouldn't notice any difference at all. So for instance if you bring a audio device from another place that uses 220V -you switch it to ~115V and adapt the plug then everything should be fine. Consider even when running on ~115V there is still a step down inside the device to further lower the voltage for the circuitry. Most electrnoics run on low voltage some even in the milivolt range...
 
The power is stepped up and down tons of time between the powerplant and your house, so one more stepping won't do much. Not much if anything is lost in stepping I don't believe. Only difference is less volts, but as audioguy said, you wont use close to 115v
 
Actually it all depends on the construction of your AMP(S). In your case the odds are the AMPS are designed for something like 12 to 15 volts, so a step down transformer should make no difference. Check the current draw of the system in question and allow for a large enough transformer.

In the case of large discrete home AMPS it becomes a bit more interesting. Fortunately most of the better AMPS come with dual wound power transformers and can be wired for either 110 or 220 volts. There is a “but” in there though. If you have a 200 watt per channel AMP wired for 110 volts and you rewire it for 220 you drop from 200 to 100 watts per channel, “BUT” you double the current available to run your speakers.

Since current is what you actually want and need to make a system more dynamic this of course can be a good thing. It’s an old trick almost nobody uses anymore but I never buy new power AMPS unless they can run 220 volts. I rewired for that back in the 80’s.;)
 
Gautama said:
The power is stepped up and down tons of time between the powerplant and your house, so one more stepping won't do much. Not much if anything is lost in stepping I don't believe. Only difference is less volts, but as audioguy said, you wont use close to 115v
Click to expand...
You're mixing up the concepts of "voltage" and "power". A device plugged into the wall will "use" 115V. The issue is how much power it uses.
 
I beg to differ...

A lot of it depends on the quality of the power that your stepper puts out... Anyone who has ever worked in pro-audio especially will know that if you have a noisy power circuit, you're going to get hum and buzz in your sound. A lot of it will really depend on the quality of the electronics in the converter you buy. Having things that "dirty" up your power on the same circuit (dimmers, low quality electronics, etc.) increase your noise floor dramatically.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top