Why whole house surge protectors are not enough

What do people recommend for surge protection that does not affect your audio quality?

Furman with LiFT and SMP has never let me down. Also provides exellent noise filtering.

Emotiva CMX-6, which I am not sure provides surge protection.

Based on specs it does not. Based on images it may have some MOVs in there but it’s not passed UL or ETL testing. MOVs may just be thrown in to help the units overall reliability as many devices have, like PC power supplies, etc..

Also, the common recommendation is to plug your amp directly into the wall, are they better at dealing with surges or just worth the risk for the audio benefits?

I’d go the other way. I’ve never had anything but positive listening effects from using a Furman, therefore I always use them.

I personally don’t think the idea that all surge protectors/conditioners are current limiting and your amp is better directly to the wall. I can see this being true for many though.

As others have pointed out though, this really depends on where you live. If you are in Florida with gear you don’t want to replace, always surge protect it.

I know some people who have never lost gear due to power problems. OTOH, I have and when I moved in here there was a surge protector still attached to the wall which had obvious scorch marks. Clearly this is an area prone to lightning strikes.

It's not all about lightning either.  When I worked in an area covered by PG&E we lost several PC power supplies over the course of a couple of days.  Each time we could smell the MOV.  In another job we lost two floors worth of surge strips over a week due to PG&E switching problems.

As others have pointed out though, this really depends on where you live. If you are in Florida with gear you don’t want to replace, always surge protect it.

I'll vouch for Florida. :-(

@erik_squires 

Furman with LiFT and SMP has never let me down. Also provides excellent noise filtering.

Thanks Erik. Any models from Furman in particular that you recommend? Elite? Reference? Is Power Factor a worthwhile feature?

@zlone

Furman makes dozens of models for the pro and home use, from actual strips, rack mount and the Elite like home equipment like units. The features I know are important for noise and surge are LiFT (linear filtering), SMP (series mode surge protection) and EVS (extreme voltage shutdown). The latter will protect you from long term over voltages which are not necessarily surges. Like 90V or 140V AC. The unit will shutdown until corrected. In SC I’ve had this trigger at least 2x.

Apparently they go in and out of stock from Amazon and Sweetwater so it's worth checking in repeatedly if there's a particular model you have in mind.  The cheapest is the strip, which has LiFT and SMP but not EVS.

The rest are convenience features. I don’t think power factor matters that much, but the Elite units have add-ons like switched outlets which are great if you use a HT processor or preamp with a trigger but your amp doesn’t have one.

I use an Elite after a unit with VR (voltage regulation). Not that I need the VR feature here like I did in California (more PG&E problems) but I have it so I might as well use it.

Erik - 

If the spike your equipment encounters is coming from the same branch circuit feeding it (say a wonky vacuum cleaner in the next room), the spike will probably get to your components before it is snubbed by the WHSP back at the service entrance panel. It can be tough to explain that to the cleaning service.  BTW, my WHSP was a Square-D that I installed when putting an addition on my house back in 1997.  A big, clunky 7" cube I mounted next to the SE panel, but I never lost equipment to a surge, and that is a lot of service years.  

On the topic of MOV's - they absorb surges until they can't, then they pop. If the surge is a long one or a big one, there may be enough of it left to still do some damage beyond where the MOV USED TO BE, and if it is a tree branch shorting between phases or worse - to a higher voltage circuit, the MOV may now be just a couple of leads with an air-gap between them.  

The VR feature you mention can be quite valuable, although it may not be a big deal with all solid state equipment because SS runs at low voltages internally, and a swing of 20-30V on the line may end up being quite low once it gets past the step-down circuitry in the device. Even so, the dielectric stress, across the tiny dimensions within the semiconductor chips can still be impressive.  OTOH, with tube equipment, especially older units that lack VR in the device, when the line voltage is stepped up for the tubes themselves, that swing is magnified and is more likely to impact the sonics and life of the tube.  When the unit was designed and tubes cost $5 from your corner TV shop, that was not the concern it can be today.  Probably most people have had a "brown-out" at one time or another caused by a tree branch shorting a power line to ground in a storm.  Worse is when a higher voltage distribution line gets in contact with the low voltage feed to your home and raises the voltage to your place by a couple orders of magnitude. I had that happen to a customer and the utility company got to replace a bunch of stuff for them. Hardware can be replaced, but not so easy to rebuild what is on your media server. 

It is an uncommon step to take, but having a device (or simply a single connection to unplug and air-gap your sensitive stuff from the outside world) can go a long way to protecting you.  Keep in mind that you should also disconnect the cable feed to your cable modem and protect the power feed to EVERY point on your network.  A surge or non-standard voltage can come in through ANY point that is not protected and will continue until it is snubbed or it literally burns out the circuitry  --  be it a semiconductor, capacitor, or even a trace on a circuit board - an effect that is usually terminal for the device.   Unfortunately, a good spike can often turn the diodes in your power supply rectifier bridge into fuses, and they seldom just clip in.