AC line voltage

Tech Square

Technical and speculative discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

I built a Bottlehead Foreplay and a Welborne modded ST70 a while back, and got high voltage readings on both. After going over and over my construction, someone on AA suggested I check my AC line voltage. The time I checked it was 124--about right to account for the 5-7% increase in my voltages from list. High--but not too high.
It's been several months running my rig and loving it, and this weekend I got a big, fat uniterruptable power supply for my computer (learned my lesson after our big blackout). The UPS has software that monitors the line voltage and kicks in battery power during under/overvoltage. I set it to kick in when the voltage goes above 130 or below 104--the thing was clicking on and off like every 3-5 minutes due to overvoltage! I had to set it at 135 to prevent the constant on-again, off-again.
So my question is: are such huge variations in AC line voltage normal and if so how do others deal with them? Will swings like this damage my tube gear? The computer is easy enough to protect, but the audio gear is another issue altogether. I know there are products like the PS Audio gear and other solutions that cost $1000's, but I really don't have that kind of cash to throw around on power protection. Do I just resign myself to burning through tubes faster and possibly killing the caps in my power supply if the voltage strays much higher than 135 for any period of time?
Any similar experiences and related solutions would be of great interest.

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Topic - AC line voltage - DLCnyc 07:18:55 09/10/03 (5)

Re: AC line voltage - Lou S 16:27:52 11/02/03 (0)

It is of course possible that your ups is defective - Norm 05:56:42 09/13/03 (0)

Re: AC line voltage - NEAR SOTA 15:55:23 09/10/03 (0)

They should respond quickly - Commuteman 13:58:17 09/10/03 (0)

Re: I would call the power company - Russ57 11:28:23 09/10/03 (0)

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