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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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erik_squires
15,878 posts
 

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. 

erik_squires
15,878 posts
 

 

elangley01
93 posts
 

Surge protection does NOT degrade the sound quality whoever told you that is an idiot.

crustycoot
600 posts
 

I am past the hearing acuity phase of my life so I am not expressing an opinion on SQ.  But in my years of selling audio in a coastal area prone to thunderstorms I have seen plenty of so-called surge suppressors fail to protect from surges. Popular brands like Panamax and Monster in particular…the ones that rarely ever failed were from Surge-X. Recently, Audioquest has been effective.  Furman is now  co-owned with Panamax, but I don’t think their technology is identical.

erik_squires
15,878 posts
 

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

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