did lightning do this?

My power company offers a surge protection device placed in our meter. Cost was $400 and we made paymnents through the monthly invoicing. I just renewed it after 10 years. It claims to cover any electrical appliances on my property from lighting damage. It has a red light illuminating and all of my neighbors ask why theirs doesn't......

Its the only power "protection/conditioner" I have. Should I invest in additional protection?  Any recommendations that wont choke my Levinson amplifiers? 

N

What timing... lightning actually struck near/both my neighbors and my house on Monday evening as a storm rolled through... It blew out two of my TV's, caller id boxes, my wireless router, the sprinkler (lawn irrigation) system. The cable from the box at the street that is the drop to my house was toasted, literally. The cable guy showed me the inside of the coax and it looked like someone put graphite powder in it... he said definately at least a direct arc if not more of a direct hit... the stereo was spared and all else is fine... I feel it could have been worse - knowing my neighbor had their alarm system fried, lost a furnace, plasma TV, and garage door opener... oh and thier wireless router too.

Lightning does do odd things. I used to do computer consulting in college and everyone thinks a surge protector on electronics makes you safe. It does help when the local grid goes down and back up and such... but almost nothing will withstand a direct lightning strike... then again - really well and properly grounded will channel it... however if it decides to strike through the power outlet everything is plugged into - my bets are not on the surge protector...

Hope the repairs are quick and painless for you!

no wonder about speakers even totems after your amp picked up some ligtning energy and brought it right onto the speakers.
no wonder as well that amp could be OK after all...

by the way, what's really interesting is that i moved in an old pair of boston acoustics cr9's, and they dont sound bad at all. go figure. they're not totems, but they're not as far as i woulda expected. maybe it's cause the rest of my system is tube/vinyl focused(well, except for my sim, but i've bypassed it's preamp with a tube pre). don't know, but while they're a lot bigger and butt ugly, im not minding them.

i know, it's very strange about only the speakers being affected. my sim i-5 is about as sensitive as it gets. i've blown that thing twice doing the most benign things. no shutdown on it...

but the totems got it. thanks for the advice on insurance. gonna give them a call and see if i can get the dough for a new pair of speakers. if not, i'll get the totems repaired.

Yeah, anything five times hotter than the surface of the sun is quite frightening.

A tree about 30 feet from my house was struck with a very powerful bolt that was heard by people for miles around. The tree was just a big pile of kindling...it exploded! TV sets, VCRs, microwave ovens, computer modem, control panel on the refrigerator, etc. all got fried, but homeowners paid "replacement value" for everything. However, there was also some damage to landscape features (the juice came in underground) and the foundation, so the insurance company was clearly involved. Interestingly the audio system was completely unaffected, except that my FM tuner lost its station memory, and had to be reprogrammed.

It seems strange that the speakers were affected rather than electronics, but lightning does strange things.

I live in Los Angeles, and the other night the thunder and lightning woke me up at 1:30 in the morning. My first thought was, "Cool!". Ten seconds later I jumped out of bed and unplugged my system from the wall. Maybe a good thing, eh?

Most insurance companies have limits for what they will cover on electronics damaged by a surge. Many times they will not cover more than $1000 per item which to non audiophiles is fine but the folks on audiogon could run into a big gap in coverage. You also have to take your deductible into consideration.

You may be able to get some help from your homeowner's insurance policy. Lightning damage of electronic equipment (which is what you probably incurred) is usually covered.

If you own your home have an electrician install a whole house surge protector. Should be around $250.

There damaged and need repair and yes lightning probley caused the damage, best thing is you can wait for everything else damaged to fail.Last strike near my home took out my furnace ,2 grage door openers my computer.None of my audio gear its mostly tube.