OT - surge protectors

[benb]

The Furman products are great.

I have the cheaper one that looks like a 2x3 power brick but has some rudimentary filtering in it.

It makes a noticeable difference with my electric guitar rig. To be fair though if you were talking about a HI-Fi rig those usually seem vastly more resistant to this kind of stuff. Guitar amps are way more finicky.

The fuse you blew.. those also blow more commonly on guitar amps. Particularly tube amps the fuse is there to protect if/when a power tube blows or if you plug into the wrong voltage. Hi-Fi tube amps might have the same scenario, maybe solid state ones do too, but again all those probably blow way less often than tube guitar amps as tube guitar amps are often kind of wonky designs that do stuff like abuse the tubes to get a particular sound.

[blantonator]

Surge protectors are usually just made up with a TVS (transient voltage suppressor). These have a total energy rating in joules and degrade every time a transient voltage is suppressed, or you have a power surge. They will wear out and should be replaced every couple years.

<- Electrical Engineer.

[blantonator]

Originally Posted by Black Dog

Call an electrician and have whole house surge protection installed at the panel. best solution by far.

This will wear out too.

[verbs4us]

The TrippLite apparently cuts power once its ability to absorb surges is weakened, so it tells you when its life span is up. Nice feature for a fair price.

[Louis]

Bumping this thread because unfortunately my parents (who live in Haiti) - and some of their neighbors - had a problem with the local utility-supplied power a few nights ago. They lost the TV, the washing machine, all the lights that were on at the time, the internet radio, their inverter, which is connected to a huge bank of batteries that along with a generator can supply power when the notoriously unreliable utility is not, and probably a few other things they didn't mention. This wasn't due to a storm, but a malfunction of the utilty's hardware.

Of course the power company won't pay for any of the damage...

Bottom line, can anyone recommend a very good whole-house surge-protector? I'd buy it here in the US and send it down to them. My quick research so far indicates that they really don't seem to be that expensive, so if a given model needs to be replaced after x years it's still worth it.

TIA
Louis