9 volt adapter reading 12 volts?

[Chris mudd]

Hello all!,
I acquired an adapter somewhere along the way to use with my pedalboard, can't remember where.

It is a Cyber Acoustics A.C. 8 that says the output is 9VDC, 700MA.

When I was it on my meter, it reads 12 v.

This may be a stupid question, but will an effect only draw 9 volts if it needs it, or is there something wrong with this adapter? I read my old Boss pea adapter and it reads a perfect 9volts.

Is this a bad adapter? I can only imagine it is either bad,
Or mislabeled.

[BuGG]

It could be defective, but a lot of inexpensive power supplies will measure higher than their rated voltage when no load is applied.  

[Andy Miller]

Yes.  I have a Radial preamp that came with a "15V" DC adapater that measures 21VDC on the meter.  I assume there's a regulator inside the Radial.

[Silver Blues]

Nah it's not bad or mislabelled, it's just not regulated. Without a load on the output the power supply will read higher than its rated voltage pretty much no matter what. Lots of inexpensive/low quality power supplies won't be regulated, this isn't uncommon by any means. I imagine if you tried to power something with it and took the reading across the circuit you'd see somewhere around 9v.