@Rich Melvin posted:AMEN TO THIS!
There is absolutely no need to run your track voltage at 18 volts when using DCS. The lower 14-volt setting limits the maximum speed for your locomotives a bit, but that's all it does. However, the lower voltage vastly diminishes the electronic "stress" on all the components in the system, and they will still work perfectly fine at 14 volts.
I thought I read a few years back in the forum that MTH admitted the DCS signal was stronger at 20V?