Using US 120v 60Hz Equipment in the UK

[Beechwoods]

Folks - A bit of advice if anyone has any experience :)

I am considering purchasing a piece of US kit, a Sony tape deck, that is specified as 120V 60Hz 43W. There's no external way of switching voltage, so I'll need to get a step-down transformer to run it off UK mains.

All the step-down transformers I've come across so far handle the voltage reduction, but the 50Hz UK mains frequency remains unchanged.

I know that effectively the lower frequency in the UK will deliver less power for the same voltage, but is there anything else I need to worry about? Does anyone else have any experiences with this sort of thing?

Thanks for your help :)

[shane]

If it has an AC motor, it will run slow. What model is it?

[Beechwoods]

An Elcaset EL-7. It was the TOTR Sony Elcaset deck so I assume it had servo controlled DC motors -

[shane]

You're probably right. I was thinking of their open-reel machines. The Elcaset would almost certainly be all DC, so it shouldn't be a problem.