100v,115v versus 230v

Okay, real answer: safety, economy, and practicality. The safety aspect is its simply much harder to shock yourself with 120, and when you do its no big. The economy aspect, higher voltages require less wire for the same power. This is why transmission lines are all high voltage, they allow a great deal of power to be transmitted a long way using relatively thin wire. The difference between 120 and 240 is less, but still if you multiply by hundreds of millions of homes its a lot of copper.

That leaves us with practicality. In Europe, and areas without a lot of copper it was more practical to balance the risk/cost towards higher voltage. In the US copper was plentiful, we could afford to be safer.  

The US system is by the way 240V. High voltage transmission lines feed power to transfer stations where huge step down transformers lower the voltage for distribution to smaller areas. Up on telephone poles or sometimes on the ground in big boxes are more step down transformers that lower the voltage again, this time because its going to your home its stepped down to 240V.  

This last step-down transformer has three taps. Two are from different windings on the transformer. The third completes the circuit by grounding back to the transformer core. Thus between two of the taps is 120V, while across the whole transformer its 240V.

The three wires that bring service to the home are the neutral wire and the two 240V wires. The two rows of breakers in the panel are the two hot wires bringing 240V into the panel. They are attached to two copper bus bars running the length of the panel. The two rows of breakers attach one to each bar with the circuit being completed by going back to the neutral bar running along one side of the panel. This is why a 240V breaker takes up two slots- it connects across to both of the bars. 120+120=240.  

The whole thing is quite safe, as you will discover if you ever actually work with the thing. It really is quite hard to shock yourself with 120V, and a whole lot easier with 240V! 

But I know all this accurate truth is gonna blow a fuse, so don't take my word for it. This video was made to reach even the H18. Well, some of em anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMmUoZh3Hq4

This is my system which is wired 240V to a step down transformer so only the last five feet or so is 120V. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

Anyway, that's the answer. The US really is 240V, but use mostly 120V inside the home because its safer. Please do watch the video. It makes this all crystal clear. Almost as clear as my prose. But delivered with a lot more energy.

I run my amps on 230Vac.They sound better. (Improved speed and better transient response.) I also have dual voltage plugs in my audio rig. I can switch from 100Vac to 250Vac @ any time. Remember 230Vac is half the amps as 115Vac....Just try it....

Two things that two people told me over time and I present them as I heard them.

1. In the U.S.A., safety was a concern (check millercarbon’s post above). That ended up with more Amperes for the same Watt number. More Amperes is allegedly somehow more problematic if anything goes bad in houses with lots of wood in their construction. More fires. Which then, just based on observation (not any kind of statistics) seems true. Houses in the U.S.A. are probably much more wood-based than those in most of the Europe.

2. Above mentioned poster is like a broken clock. He is correct twice a day. It is that time of the day, it seems.

The only way to find out the answer to OP is to cary the same amplifier to the place with both voltages. However, once you add some step-down/up transformer in the mix, are you sure you know what is influencing what you hear? I have 110 and 220 (240?) here. My turntable has both voltages. It runs the same speed at both voltages. Ok, a little cheating. It is quartz-controlled.

Yeah, nothing I'd like more than to run 230V in this apartment... :)

Sadly almost all American outlets are 110V, with rare exceptions for large appliances.  Still, the potential is there! I mean, high voltage = less current, less voltage sag during drops.

Of course, you could also get a Sander's MagTech amp, which does a pretty good job of compensating for this.

It is becaurse you only use half the current in 220-240V hifi. Watt is watt no matter where you are. So if a amplifier is 220W it only uses 1 Amp. current in europe, but 2 Amp. in the US. So it is twice as hard on the internal of the amp. and there is more heat that needs to get away from the unit.

230V or 110V is just as dangerous. You can die from more than 51V 0,03 Amp.here in europe. Yes, someone even died from at battery 9V. He put his tung on a new battery......