[floresjc]

Anyone use a power strip or any sort of surge protection between the wall and your gear? Or do most people plug their system straight into an outlet? For something like an AVA double 440 or 240/3, I'd imagine there's a pretty high current requirement on the power strip if its recommended to do at all. Thanks for the info.

[Wayner]

Several surge protectors that I have are rated for 15A at 120 volts, so you should be fine with your AVA amp plugged into it. Check your protector's rating (I'm sure it's the same).

Wayner

[martyo]

I have a Double 550 on it's own dedicated 20amp line and don't use anything. All my other gear IS on a protected power strip. I would guess I take a minimulist (spelling?) approach.

[rockadanny]

I use Brickwall units for my audio gear, built by Zero Surge. They work differently than others and are good for audio (surge protection plus isolation). Check out Zero Surge units and read about their design:

http://www.zerosurge.com/HTML/standaloneres.html

You can purchase directly from Zero Surge, or from Brickwall ( http://www.brickwall.com/ ). Depends on which is having a sale as to which is cheaper on any given day.

I plug all of my gear into these except my AVA Ultra Fet Valve 550, which is direct to the wall. I keep it unplugged from the wall until ready to use.

[Big Red Machine]

I am not an expert, but I stay away from transformer units that regenerate power because they can be noisy and compress the sound in my experience.

Here is an older link, but very informative I ran into this week.  http://www.boundforsound.com/tweak.htm

If you need surge protection, then have at it, but most of it will not really protect you in a real strike anyway.  And some of it can restrict the AC and hurt your sound.  I don't use any surge stuff anymore, but use extensive parallel filtering from Alan Maher, Blue Circle, Bybee (series), and Versalab to clean up the EMI/RFI.

Do you have nasty or unreliable AC there?

[WGH]

I use a Panamax 5410 for the pre-amps, DAC, projector and all the other home theater stuff, the AVA 440 is plugged directly into the wall which also makes the system quieter when using the surround equipment.

The TV, surround processor, digital tuner, DVD player, and VCR plug into a Tripplite Isotel which is then plugged into the Panamax. The Tripplite is used like a powerstrip and adds another layer of protection for the sensitive video equipment. Here in Tucson during the monsoon season we can get a thunderstorm with lightning every day from July through September with a lot of mini-outages and I am not always home to unplug everything.

[sedah]

It's the one thing from Monster that I'm willing to buy:
http://store.monstercable.com/outlet/product.asp?id=85&catid=16

Some 'features' that I'm a huge fan of:
- isolated circuits for some components
- surge protection (obviously)
- constant power (it smooths out power from the socket)
- the voltage panel is hilarious - in my apt, I rarely ever see 120v... usually comes through anywhere between 115 and 119.

There's a bunch of fancy disconnect / reconnect stuff... but generally my two favorite features are: it gives me peace of mind, and it has blinky lights! 

[woodsyi]

I second the Zero Surge/Brick Wall recommendation. 

If you are planning on putting in dedicated audio circuit(s) you can even place the surge protection in a subpanel and not bother with any strips.

[Big Red Machine]

I also use a Zero Surge in the family room TV/DVD setup due to their high marks and reasonable pricing.  I use a 3500 or somesuch Monster unit in the HT for convenience on/off capability and not the surge stuff.

I'm much more anal when it comes to the 2 channel sound.  Couldn't you tell?

Is this for a mutlipurpose room or dedicated 2 channel?

[floresjc]

More for the 2 channel. Downstairs I have a panamax with alot of source and the tv hooked to it. The 240/3 will probly go straight into the wall I guess. For upstairs, I need to plug in a double 440, the Insight dac, an Insight pre-amp, and a squeezebox, so I wasn't sure if surge protector was the way to go with the amp. I figured that would go straight into the wall, and the "little" stuff into a power strip. Thanks for the recommendations.

[Big Red Machine]

I ran across these just today:

http://www.10audio.com/psaud_UO_v_Hydra2.htm

http://www.10audio.com/diy_power_conditioner.htm

[fluke242]

For me:

no surge = amps
yes surge = everthing else, but for sure TV/Computer

I know you did not ask about power conditioning devices, but they are a joke - imho.  Unless you have terrible power (brown-outs, etc).... then go for it...but from what I have gathered... Filtering power is worthless - you need to create it to have control...

..the problem is in creating the perfect sine wave of AC AND double-isolating the device.  This usually involves converting AC to DC back to AC for both positive and neutral.  I have not seen a single commercial product that does this.  The best I have seen is true on-line double converstion but that is only for the one leg, positive.  Mind you, this meets the needs of the DoD and hospitals...

[Wayner]

Of course you all realize that a lightning strike will jumper all of those nifty devices and still fry all your components, so I wouldn't put too much prudence into it. Good for stopping the local utilities from hooking up the wrong power transformer to your neighborhood, worthless against mother nature.

Wayner

[Nuance]

Even the brickwall stuff, Wayner?  I thought they were designed to protect against even that?

Let's hope none of us fall victim to a lightning strike.

fluke242 -

+1

[Wayner]

5 million volts it will not stop. It is the ultimate power in the universe.....wait, that's from Star Wars. Well, It is anyway. A lightning strike will blow thru everything. I really don't have a clue what the current level is, but I'll bet it's in the hundreds of thousands of amps, if not millions. Kaboom. That's all she wrote.

Wayner

[laserman]

Wayner is correct about "that's all she wrote" if you get a direct hit on your house or electrical power transformer box (underground lines here) and you don't have a lightening arrestor system hooked up - POOF.

When I lived in St. Joe, MI, lightening hit the ground near my cable box and took out a VCR.  That's it...one VCR.  Where I live now in PA, lightening hit the corner of my 3 season room a couple of years ago and took out a receiver and portable cd player I had hooked up (powered off but still plugged in) in my garage system.  Nothing else was affected.  Since then, I have installed a whole house surge protector and have all electronics except for the amps on their own system units.  The Zero Surge are very good units.

I talked to a neighbor down the street from me who's house sits on a higher elevation and asked him why he installed a complete lightening arrestor protection system.   He stated his house had experienced a direct hit where he lived prior to moving here.  The damage to the building structure was minimumal, but it wiped out everything that was plugged into an outlet...everything.  He said his insurance paid most but not all of the replacement cost.   The arrestor protection system is not inexpensive, but provided him with piece of mind even though he's not 100% sure this will stop electrical damage from a direct hit.  So far so good for him and I haven't had another incident.    OBTW, I now unplug most items when I see lightening in the forcast or travelling.

Lou

[Nuance]

Good to know guys, thanks.