Does a higher gauge electrical wire impact voltage level?


Throughout the day the voltage level varies from the power company. Not by much but it's from 110 to 123.  
 

Does overall voltage level get impacted when higher gauge electrical wires are used from the breaker to the outlet?

emergingsoul

Carlsbad

With most amps able to handle the given range then why is it necessary to deal with Power supply issues related to smaller and larger gauge electrical wires? 
 

You bought a regenerator so you can have a stable power supply. There appears to be some contradiction herein.

A relative novice chiming in here.

My system is tube amps feeding Klipsch Cornwall 4's. The high efficiency Cornwalls are easily driven by the Primaluna EVO 400's pre and power. Lately, I have been mucking about with vintage Western Electric cloth covered wire with tinned, stranded wires in both 16 gauge and 10 gauge which I have made up into speaker cables. They have supplanted an Audioquest "Castle Rock" bi-wire cable which is articulate but too bright.

Immediately noticeable with the 10 gauge cable is that bass has become deeper and more impactful. However, 10 gauge jumpers to the "High" speaker taps on the Cornwalls presents a high end that is somehow too forced and strident sounding. Therefore I tried using 16 gauge jumpers and found everything pretty well balanced.

My question - is there any potential harm to electronics by mating these two different gauges in one string of speaker cable?
 

 

With respect to variations in volts, aren’t all the capacitors in a amplifier designed to mitigate variations in power supply. Ie. Because capacitors store up energy waiting for demands to deal with frequency variations?

 

The caps are supposed to smooth out bumps in the power supply to a point, but...!

Most amplifiers are "unregulated." Meaning long term (several seconds) changes in the AC line will make it to the amplifier voltage rails. So if your DC rails are +- 50V with 120VAC input, they will vary in proportion to input. They could be 45V at 108V for instance (picking values that are 10% for ease of math).

Also, noise can jump across the power supply caps due to the inherent lack of perfection in the caps. Series resistance and inductance can reduce how perfectly they cut noise out.

Line level devices, like your preamp, CD player, DAC, etc. however are almost always fully regulated.  Meaning so long as the incoming VAC stays above a certain point, the voltage rails the circuits depend on stay locked at their designed voltage, often 5, 12 or 15 Volts.  In these cases, even wider incoming VAC variations won't really change what the working voltage the circuits see. 

Most amplifiers are "unregulated." Meaning long term (several seconds) changes in the AC line will make it to the amplifier voltage rails. So if your DC rails are +- 50V with 120VAC input, they will vary in proportion to input. They could be 45V at 108V for instance (picking values that are 10% for ease of math).

And,

When the power transformer’s secondary winding voltage is lower feeding the rectifier, due to a quick AC mains VD event, and the electrolytic capacitors voltage is higher, the rectifier will not conduct and the caps do not get recharged for that "(millisecond pulse)" in time. Or for a longer VD drop, until the caps voltage is lower than that of the AC voltage feeding the rectifier.

Also when the mains voltage drops below the manufacturers rated AC voltage the power output of the Amp's wattage will be lowered.

Silly question.  Just make sure you have a thick enough wire and voltage changes will be tiny.  And, unlike many here who worry too much about it, remember your power cord is the last 6 feet of miles and miles of electricity company cable bringing your power from the power station, plus a few 10s of feet in your home wiring.

Don't obsess.