Surge protection


My apartment recently had a serious power surge. To my horror, a few pieces of equipment were killed! Aurender was great for repairing my N100. Still waiting on the status of my Walker precision motor drive and Meridian Headphone amp. 

It’s been my understanding that surge protectors degrade the sound of a high-end system. But going forward I feel I would be foolish not to put surge protectors in front of my expensive equipment.

I would appreciate any advice about what works without sound degradation, 

 

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Showing 6 responses by erik_squires

@fuzztone - Furman makes a very wide range of surge strips and conditioners.  You can go from my blog post to find more details but to get the Wirecutter performance you need SMP and LiFT.

@yage

 

I've had the Furman Extreme Voltage trip happen from brown outs.  It's a good thing. 

Just to be sure people understand this:

Whole house surge protection is important BUT they have high clamping voltages.  All makers and the NEC recommend you use them in addition to point of use protection for sensitive equipment.

@crustycoot  - Panamax does have some units (but certainly not all) which have SMP and LiFT from Furman. 

The best sounding, and best performing for surge protection devices I know of are Furman with SMP and LiFT. I live in a lightning prone area and based on testing done by Wirecutter and my own listening tests I can honestly say I would never run an audio system here without a Furman.  Keep the feature list in mind though.  They make dozens with a variety of combinations of features but the one's you want are LiFT and SMP.

If you were in a home I would also recommend a whole house surge protector in the electrical panel, preferably one made by the panel maker that fits in place of breakers.