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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
jmslaw
95 posts
 
Well, congratulations. All that suggests to me is that you have been VERY fortunate. Unlike other audio accessories, the effects of which may be subjective and psycho-acoustic, surge suppressors either work or they don't- either your equipment gets fried or it doesn't. If you are suggesting that spending money on surge protection is frivolous, I would suggest that there are many people on this forum who have lost BIG-TIME $$ on lightning strikes, etc. You have dodged a bullet or two. Don't try to convince others to live dangerously, as well.
cwlondon OP
1,210 posts
 
I am not trying to convince anyone to "live dangerously".

I am hoping someone will provide me with sufficient justification to add more expensive gear to my audio collection.

But as you can see from my experience, this has not yet been easy to do.

Thank you,
edesilva
768 posts
 
Just to pitch the other side of the coin... I was listening to my stereo when a lightning storm rolled in... I saw the bolt out of two different windows that were, respectively, on the south and east sides of my house. Took out the CATV box, fried the output transistors inside a powered sub, and destroyed an ARC LS-9. I now use some power products...

My PS Audio Power Director also does improve the sound--here I have some actual objective data as well as the usual subjective "deeper blacks, etc." I used to have a pair of ARC D240s wired up (and on 24/7) to a pair of Martin Logan Prodigy speakers. The speakers had these strange blue ML logos behind the panel that glowed, and which I thought were on all the time. Well, I put in the PS Audio Power Director--which doesn't really claim to be a filter--and the lights disappeared. The speakers worked, so I went back to the manual and discovered that the lights were an indicator of a signal being present on the speaker inputs. In the absence of a signal being detected, the panels shut down.

Net takeaway... There was enough noise on my power lines to cause my speakers to think a signal was actually present. When I swapped in the PS PD, it cleaned up the lines enough that it went away. Made me a believer.
mjw55
82 posts
 
Luck is a good thing to have!!!
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
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.
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