[Big Bad Bob]

On 01/28/11 00:53, Patrick Turner so witilly quipped:
snip for brevity,
The vast majority of users are technically illiterate, through no
fault of their own.

Understandably, or else they might attempt to build their OWN amps
instead (from a kit or scratch).

They cannot be blamed for buying ARC and other major "reputable" brand
names of audio gear while thinking they can use it without special
mains arrangements to get reliability if the mains voltage is 13.7%
above the labelled input mains voltage on the unit they buy, ie,
252Vrms instead of the labelled 220Vrms.

I still think that a switching power supply would cost LESS than a power
transformer, _AND_ address the wild fluctuation of supply voltages. You
know, like computer power supplies. They're usually very tolerant, or
at least up to a point. And you could use a single power supply design
for US and AU and UK and everywhere else on the planet. My
manufacturing experience tells me that a 'fits all' component reduces
cost even further by NOT requiring multiple versions of the equipment
(and the component parts) to be ordered, stocked in inventory, and
separately built.

ARC and many other makers in the US and in China etc fail this golden
rule dismally.

They're being cheap in their power supply design (i.e. no taps on the
transformer). That seems a bit strange for something that's "high end".