A good surge suppressor, which will clamp down on excess voltage before it can fry your components, can be found at electronics and computer stores.
Wasted heat on the output devices can be reduced as excess voltage is kept to a minimum.
Tubes intended for series-string operation of the heaters across the supply have a specified controlled warm-up time to avoid excess voltage on some heaters as others warm up.
"There's a lot of excess voltage in New York, and for me this loft is an oasis."
If the neutral is broken, devices connected from a 120 V leg to the neutral may experience excess voltage, up to twice normal.
"Rube's just discharging excess voltage."
There isn't enough excess voltage to permit the use of an ordinary i.c. stabilizer unless one of the new low-voltage-drop kinds is available.
I don't know; is the excess voltage flushing out a computer a 'trick?
Since the voltage drop across all the filaments in series is sometimes less than the full mains voltage, it was often necessary to get rid of the excess voltage.
Shortening the lead or replacing it with a copper lead will damage the tube filaments by excess voltage.