Hello outlaws,

I do have this question and couldn't find a definitive answer on the web (maybe I didn't search hard enough...).
What's the tolerance of the regular household voltage in US?
+/- what?
My PS Audio Duet power conditioner started to go crazy lately and shut off "out of the blue". A closer inspection showed that it does that when the voltage is 127V and works nicely below this threshold.
Now I need to know whether the Duet, which has over and under voltage protection, operates within normal ranges and I should take the issue with PECO Energy or 127V is OK and I have to address this with PS Audio.
Does anyone know that the standard is, please?

Thank you very much,
Alex

The standard is 120V. So at 127V, you're 5.8% over the spec. You'd think a power fluffer would be able to handle overvoltage and sags within a reasonable margin. 5.8% doesn't sound too extreme to me. Have you tried calling PS Audio?

Nominal voltage is 120 VAC. Depending on the load being used in your area and the ability of the power company to supply that load, the voltage varies between 110 and 130 VAC. Power conditioners not only sense voltage fluctuations which could harm your equipment, it probably also senses voltage on your ground circuit such as may come from lightning strikes.

Thank you both. Thus, by the looks of it, the power conditioner should not balk at 127V.
I'll have to call PS Audio tomorrow.

Again, thank you very much.

Alex

I agree with XenonMan - don't have a hard number on it, but 110V-130V is a range that I'd consider pretty common.

Have you upgraded the power input cord or done any of the other recommended improvements to the supplied power circuit, per the manual? According to the manual, PS Audio recommends that you enhance the power cord for optimal results and also replace your receptacle with one of their other products which clean up the voltage coming from the wall.

Contact your power company (PECO) and ask them if they can tune the transformer for your neighborhood to provide a higher stability voltage. Unless I am mistaken, PECO has several Nuclear Generating stations in their grid so the power should be pretty clean.

Well, my email to PS Audio resulted in this message from them:

"Hello Alexandru,

I would be more than happy to provide a replacement cartridge. Please give me your shipping address, and I will get one sent out today."
Thus they implicitly acknowledged that 127V should not trigger a shut-off.

I, one, consider that to be good customer service even if their product was not perfect.

I could only wonder at what the outcome would have been had one accused them of damaged equipment due to inadvertent and repeated "on-off" cycles...
I had the unit for a while powering a PS Audio DLIII DAC and I didn't realize something was wrong until I changed that DAC for a Wyred 4 Sound DAC2. Sometimes I saw the DAC2 "losing its previous settings after a night spent in standby".
This is what triggered my investigation as I intially thought the W4S had a problem.
A recent late listening session, at 2AM in the morning, caught the Duet "in the act". And when it turned back on, it wasn't pretty, for my power amp was on.
That really got my attention.
I quickly plugged a voltmeter in an outlet and saw 127V.
I unplugged my components from the Duet and watched it alone for a while. As soon as the voltage got to 127 it was shutting off. When the voltage was back to 126.8, was back on. And again, and again... I remembered my childhood when I was playing with the light switch to the point of making my dad start a foot chase after me.

I could only think of how many time the PS Audio DAC was turned off and on during the night without any telltale sign.
But it didn't complain and didn't flinch.

In spite of all these, I truly like what the Duet does for the sound quality. As I discovered the issue (last Friday), I took it out of commission and immediately felt the difference without it.
I do have surge protection at electrical panel level, thus the Duet was for filtration only, and did/does a great job.

Let's see what the new cartridge will do...

Alex