From mskremote@yahoo.com Mon Aug 13 04:54:05 2012
Subject:Re: Gear and power strips


>> Another possibility is that as power supplies move towards 'universal'
100-240V models, they could be designed to only marginally work at the
higher voltages. If so, then players in 240V countries might see
component failures that those of us in 100V or 120V countries don't
experience.

Bruce I think this the reason, most consumer products that have world or universal power supplies are 100v to 230v, there are too few 240v markets, compounding that our supply regularly runs at between 245 to 250, if a spike comes along there is little tolerance left to cope.  I doubt that supply voltage has changed much over the past 20 years but over this time, dating from introduction of PC's, surge protectors have become a mandatory household item here. Once most electrical items were made here and the power supplies
designed for local conditions. Electrical manufacturing is dead here and
everything is imported from S Korea, Malaysia, Thailand or China now. Interestingly I still have a Pioneer receiver from the 70's (made in Japan).  Over all the years of spikes and surges that have killed printers, VCR's and phone gear in our house it has survived.  It fades down for about 15 secs after switch off.   

Cheers

Mark      

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