So I am considering a lake people G111. It is factory set for 230v service. From what I gather it will operate, but underpowered on the 125v service I have in my home here in the U.S.
I am concerned that just plugging it in and running it that way will have a negative impact on sound quality. None of the options I am considering for headphones need “all that power”, so it isn’t about power or volume to the cans. However, a lot of reviews of ‘phones mention that if you don’t have enough amp, you can power them, but not -properly- and the sound suffers. Is this at all true or even analogous for the amp?
There are options to fix this. The first is to operate on the amp, switching the power supply circuitry from its factory set 230v setting to the factory supplied 115v circuit. There is official guidance from the manufacturer, and this is something the amp was designed to do. Nonetheless, I am VERY reluctant to be cutting runs on the pcb and soldering leads together. If this were a $50 piece of electronics I’d be like heck why not, but for a $500 amp, this just isn’t in my comfort zone.
Alternately, I could hire an electrician to run a 220v circuit to my home office. I have 220 at the service panel, but here in the US this is a specialty outlet, typically reserved for specific appliances. The cost to have this run would be comparable to or greater than the cost of the amp. This seems sub-optimal.
Finally, I could run it off of a 110v-220v step up transformer. For a small 100 watt unit, they aren’t expensive ($20-$40 ish), and the amp only wants 10 watts, so this shouldn’t be a problem. Thus far, I am thinking this is me best overall solution.
Am I overthinking this? Will an amp suffer in sound quality of under volted? I am looking at fairly efficient, relatively low impedance headphones, so power to the ear isn’t really my concern, I just want to make sure I am getting the sound quality the amp is known for.
It depends on how the amp is designed…if Lake People are technically tellling you that you can rewire by cutting some runs (lands) on the pcb and soldering together some to get the amp to work with 120 vac this should be just fine.
I would think that what they are doing it using different input taps to the primary side of the internal power transformer. If it were me I wold validate this and if so then no issue.
Running a 220vac line to me is abit well…silly.
:>)
I would get an amp built for your available power…in the first place.
Most amps that have a dual voltage spec that allow you to change from 110 to 220 are just having the input line voltage attach to different windings on the transformer…
I sent a message in via their ‘contact us’ link. Being a Sunday afternoon, I didn’t want to call and potentially disturb anyone from their weekend. Since I am a couple of months out from any potential purchase anyhow, this inquiry isn’t super urgent, I’m just trying to line ducks up ahead of time.
Yeah, I suppose the obvious best solution would be the one I would miss. That’s me in a nutshell. I kinda feel silly having not thought of that, because now that you point it out, it seems like something that should have occurred to me straight away.