30 Years, 5 Cities, Many Storms - Not One Failure


As I am tempted by offerings for the newest crop of expensive, high end surge suppressors and power conditioners, I thought I might share with the Audiogon community a particuarly inexpensive one which I have been using since 1978.

Through the years, I have moved at least 8 times, lived in 5 different cities through all seasons including stormy Northeastern winters, Summer "brownouts", total blackouts and countless late Summer, high humidity thunderstorms.

I have owned tube gear, solid state gear, televisions, video devices, LCD projectors - the works - typically leaving all my components on 24/7.

In my latest house, I reported in another thread that the village infrastructure is not so robust; my wall voltage fluctuates from 114 - 124 volts, and we reguarly see brownouts in the summer and power outages in both winter and summer when storms knock branches into the above ground power lines.

Would you like to know my low cost secret for protecting all these components?

NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That right, I have NEVER used a surge suppressor or power conditioner of any kind. I have never unplugged any equipment during a storm - in fact I usually didnt even turn it off.

So as much as I am always seeking new ways to throw money at this lifelong hobby of mine, I am little confused about all the fuss on power conditioners and in particular, surge suppressors.

Does this thread surprise any of you?
cwlondon

Showing 2 responses by eldartford

I am also skeptical of all the hype about "conditioning" the AC power. Maybe I am just lucky to live in a rural area, and have audio equipment with good power supplies, but I have been unable to hear any degradation as a result of noise on the ac power. I have cell phones, cordless phones, fluorescent lights, dimmers, and even a device designed to repel mice by deliberately putting HF on the power line, and nothing seems to affect the audio system. Or the TV for that matter.

A surge arrester is quite a different matter. During thunder storms we do get spikes, and I have had unprotected electronic equipment damaged, although the audio system was not affected. By the way, turning things off does little good, as the voltage spike will jump right over the switch contacts. Unplug to be safe.
Thefalls1117..."Hits to his house". Really? Not just a surge/spike on the line? If so insurance might cover damage. It did when a tree about 30 feet from my house was hit. Although no audio equipment was damaged, TV sets, VCR, control module on refrigerator, microwave and some other things were zaped. Insurance bought me new replacements.