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A few days ago my local power company hooked up a new house next door.
As a result, I lost power for about 6 hours. I had to call the power company asking what the connection could possibly be between hooking up a new house and having my power cut off.
They said that, purely coincidently, (LOL!) my transformer happened to "blow" at the same time.
I now have all an all new transformer and associated wiring in my driveway.
I know a lot of people promote dedicated circuits and power conditioners for improved hi-fi playback. Maybe it's just my frame of mind, but it could be that my system sounds better (and frame of mind has a lot to do with playback appreciation).
But my real question is whether or not a new transformer could actually improve my incoming electric power signal and thereby improve the performance of my music and video equipment.
I appreciate any thoughts..............Roxymott
Follow Ups:
could also depend on which tap they stick your house on.
If you were on a bottom tap, and now got moved to tap 1 on the new transformer, you could def. hear a dif.
As a journeyman lineman troubleshooter for a power company in Florida,with 30years on the job,may I say,sir,your claim about which 'tap' a service is connected to shows you don't have a clue what you are talking about.Sorry to be so blunt,but it is laughable.
Upon reflection,I feel somewhat sorry for 'breaking bad' on you for your post.The thing is,you make a statement that infers that what you wrote has merit,when in fact it makes no sense at all.There are 3 'taps'on a transformer for 120/240 voltage delivered to residential services.There are two 120volt spades,and a neutral spade.A service wire to a house,(3 wires)has 1 each 'hotleg' connection to each of the 120v spades,and the neutral wire connected to the system neutral on the pole,or the neutral spade in a underground (urd) transformer.
The terms you employed,i.e.'bottom tap' and 'tap1' have no factual basis. At any rate I do apologize for the boorish tone of my response to your post.......S/V
If you want to improve your audio, shot your transformer so it can be replaced......think a 12ga slug will do it?
Vista 32bit[JRiver MC]---> Stereovox XV2 coax---> Lavry DA10---> Acoustic Zen Silver RefII---> Aragon 8008BB---> Dynaudio Audience 82
Karma Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry
We reside in an older pt. town and therefore have arial service. It is common for our tranny to blow from ttt.
In my experience, it DOES have an effect. The power IS subst better for at least a little while...you can hear it in the TV's.. see it in the light bulbs even..
someone mentioned new/fresh connections...I think probably has most to do with it,, but I would also offer that sometimes,, a clearly better transformer is installed,, and then the power is just better. [IME]
I judge all of this of course with my superior audiophile ear...
FC
Maybe just the freshly made and clean cable connections are making the difference.
Perhaps the "tap" he meant was how far down the line from the transformer he was located and it does make a difference. I dicovered only by accident that my house line voltage was a mere 105 volts and sometime even lagged lower from that. I only discovered it because one of my AR preamps cuts off at a preset voltage for protection and I noticed that while listening to my system several times a day it would simply cut out and go dead on me. That's when I started taking measurememnts. It turns out the transformer was also being used to supply another street in the neighborhood that had a bad one which hadn't been replaced yet. The fellows from DWP who came out were exceptional and also discovered that the boost caps by the transformer were also bad and blew the fuses everytime they were engaged. In any case a new transformer was installed and they were kind enough to install it 2 doors away from my house instead of at the end of the street...over a dozen houses away. My line voltage immediately increased to 117 and yet at the end of the street my neighbor was at 112.....5 volts difference simply by being at the end of the line. Perhaps that's the "tap" that was being referred to in which case it does indeed make a difference as was also verified by my DWP installers.
O.k.,sorry,I have had a few glasses of vino this evening.You said that your voltage was increased as a result of the power company adding a tx. in line to help the load situation in your neighborhood.This is normal when the 'load and voltage' or 'a.k.a.' 'power quality' department realizes a need for an upgrade....Cheers...S/V.
fxbill,I just don't believe that the poster referred to what you describe.I understand completely what it is that you refer to.If a transformer goes bad some night,or such, and there are breakers on the secondary between 2 transformer feeds,and the load is such that a couple, or a few more houses can be handled by an existing transformer on the same lateral (primary pulloff),then a crew can and will jumper across the breakers as a temporary measure to restore service to those services fed by the bad transformer (tx.)in order to avoid replacing the bad tx., that night ,usually if the tx. is in the 'rear of',inaccessible, in other words.However that condition is only temporary,and should not be employed for extended period of time.If your voltage is reading 105,you should call the power company asap.Perhaps a voltage regulator in the substation,or on the line,depending on how far you are from the substation regulators is 'stuck'.Step regulators occasionally malfunction and 'stick' on a particular tap.They move up and down throughout the day as load demand merits.I occasionally have to answer calls which require that I have to go to the substation and check the 'regs'.The distribution dispatcher has 'scada' telemetry which indicates what the 'regs' are putting out.Trust me,105 volts is below the allowable margin of variance a power company is allowed to permit.If it is not regulator malfunction,then your power company needs to immediately address the situation,which would require more capacitor banks,etcetera,installed.I cannot feel that the company would not be on top of the load situation in your area,but anything is possible.Also,regarding your specific case,for example a 25 kva tx. would typically feed 4 normal sized home services.A 37.5 kva tx. would feed perhaps 6 or maybe 7 homes of 'normal' size.I refer to average neighborhood houses,such as 4bdr/2bth type residences.A 50kva tx. might feed 8 or nine such residences.This is of course generally speaking.And,yes ,there is 'line loss', depending on how far a load might be along a secondary buss from the tx.This is calculated by the engineering department of a power company,and should be implemented accordingly.Sorry if I bored you with the obvious.Cheers.....S/V.
fxbill,If you please I submit this as a p.s. The poster to which we refer mentioned that if the o/p connections were moved on the transformer during the connecting of the 'new' house,this may account for the difference.I submit that the o/p's home did not move any further away from the tx. than it was originally. My angst regarding the post to which I replied is that I regularly,as a matter of course on my job,face similar situations with customers when I arrive to 'shoot' trouble on a power outage,or some other problem.It is really rather comical that so often the customer will inform me that they know where the problem is and what needs to be done.Rarely it is that the customer has a clue as to what the problem is.I am the one the power company sent to 'fix' the problem,and people are there telling me what to do and how to do it.People ,I might say, who have not 1 day of experience in electrical distribution systems.And, by the way,my, and my colleagues favorite examples of this phenomenon are the electrical or electronics engineer customers who feel compelled to come out and impart to us, as we arrive on a 'trouble' call,their wisdom and advice as to what we should consider as the cause of whatever the problem is.Actually,this electrical distribution thing is just not 'rocket surgery'.It is really quite mundane and predictable.......Again,sorry if I bored you or any with my ramblings............S/V.
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