I’ve just bought a relatively expensive bit of musical equipment from the UK (I’m in the US). It requires different voltage than we get out of the wall here. My question is, is there some sort of adapter I can just buy, or do I need to send this baby into the manufacturer? And, even if there is an adapter, can I count on it to run smoothly and neither fry my new recorder, nor give me inconsistant voltage?
You can definitely buy a converter, it’s a pretty straightforward piece of equipment. I do not know what price you should expect to pay but garden variety converters intended for travelers are under US$20. You may need something with a bit tighter tolerances. Consistency should be no problem if your wall current is consistent. You will want to make sure that the output voltage is really what the spec says. You will also need to make sure that the power (watts) or current (amps) capacity exceeds your musical equipment’s.
I would have thought that you could buy the converter the same place you bought the recorder. You might also try a computer store, since that type of equipment is similar in power needs. You might also try a large musical instrument store; guitar amps and studio recording equipment are also similar in power needs.
Are you absolutely certain that it doesn’t already come with a way to change the required input voltage ? Lots of things come with fuse receptacles or power cords hookups that are actually cleverly designed switches which can be set for 210 or 120 volt operation.
Yes, it’s called a step-up transformer.
A 1:2 step-up transformer would be an efficient device for boosting the voltage.
But you might have another problem: frequency.
If it was designed for 50 Hz, then you won’t have a problem with cooking any internal transformers. (This is only a problem when you try to operate 60 Hz equipment at 50 Hz). But does the unit derive a clock signal/reference frequency from the power line? If it does, operating at 60 Hz would probably screw something up. But I doubt it would damage anything.