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School me on surge suppression/power conditioning

Long time lurker off and on, new member. 

I moved to a rural area in north idaho that sees some surges(flickering lights) now and then plus some quick outages that last a few seconds to minutes to hours to days. Our area has all underground power and we have the big green transformer 350 feet away from our house down the driveway. Meter is outside the house on a pole that feeds 3 separate buildings. Our pump house, the stand alone garage, house.

 

Before i install my old school deftech powered towers and center along with my parasound hca1205 and Yamaha 3080 reciever id like to do some things to prevent damage to this equipment. I dont have a lot of money, and it IS a triple wide MH. So no room left in the inside breaker panel with it full of tandems and quads already. Thinking number #1 is a panel mounted surge suppression at the outside meter/mains shut-off to the 3 buildings. Im comfortable inside a breaker panel unless its pulling the meter. Each building also has its own breaker panel with main lug panel but too are also full since they chose the smallest panels.

Ive been reading, and definitely overwhelmed and confused. Ive got maybe a $500 budget for now. Just had to replace my heatpump ($6k)and have backup heat(woodstove $10k) installed so im kinda tapped for a few months. 

budgetav
budgetav OP
9 posts
 

What about buying used off ebay? Ive got my eye on a few different surgeX products 

sndsrtaud's avatar
sndsrtaud
53 posts
 

Here's my thoughts after 50+ yrs as an audio enthusiast, SoundStage! reviewer, and shop owner. Before dumping $$$ into a power conditioner, you should determine whether you even need one as good ones are expensive.  Get yourself a meter which measures line noise. A Trifield EM100 meter ($170USD) does a good job.Go around your house and take readings. If your readings are below 50 mV, you're good and don't need a conditioner.  First, if you own your place, have a dedicated line installed. Then take a reading on that line. If the readings are still in the hundreds you have some options. In the past, I've had some PLCs in my system, but they never stayed too long, especially if I went with a dedicated line.  My adopted kids were ADHD and asthmatic.  Some research indicated dirty electricity might a contributing factor, so I bought some plug-jn G-S filters  from Stetzerelectric.com.  The current cost is $40 ea.  I bought 8 for my 300 sq-ft home.  After experimenting with placement, the reading I am was getting were n the 9-20 mV on the EM100 meter., usually in single digits in the dedicated line.  Way cheaper than a decent PLC. I can hear no adverse effects of using them.  Another benefit of the G-S filters is they can quash appliance transients running through your home's mains. Of course, YRMV. but I'm pretty sold on the G-S filters and have been using them for years.

budgetav OP
9 posts
 

Like i said. Im not the greatest at hearing anymore due to my career choices. Its not so much power conditioning im worried about and affecting soundstage, im running 20+ year old def tech bipolar speakers all around and adding in an equally old parasound hca1205a to power them. The newest equipment i have is a few year old Yamaha aventage 3080 thats been in storage for 2-3 years. 

I own but its a mobile home triple wide, theres literally no free space in the breaker box to even add a tandem as its already full of tandems. Im rural, 30 miles from town and we get flickering and quick outages every time theres a windstorm or heavy rain/snow. Im most worried about surges to protect the equipment i have that i honestly cant afford to replace. TVs are cheap, decent reciever, amps, and speakers are not.

sndsrtaud's avatar
sndsrtaud
53 posts
 

Given your location, I would also recommend that you remove all light dimmers and florescent bulbs/fixtures as they add a significant amount of noise to your mains.  I still recommend the G-S filters.  They are similar to offerings from "audio" companies, but the G-S can be had for a much lower cost.

 

erik_squires
17,543 posts
 

So, wanted to reply about the Wirecutter testing.  As far as I know, the Wirecutter testing I reference in my blog is the only third party source of surge protection testing which has been published in a review.  All the other "reviews" or surge protectors were lifestyle and specification reviews.   Also, they recommend other brands, including Tripp Lite, as being almost as good for cheaper. 

If you find 3rd party surge testing articles anywhere, please let me know.

Also, the 2017 Wirecutter was more comprehensive and included more details but they have taken it offline and all that remains are some text only independent archives. 

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