Surge protectors--how many $ make sense?

OP:

Over-current protection is a requirement for today’s high current audio power distributors.

True, but almost any power strip has one.

There is a better solution — the hydraulic electromagnetic breaker that utilizes low-impedance relays and a sensing coil that reads the current level without heating up or limiting current.

That’s cool, still won’t help you in case of an incoming voltage surge. Breakers protect against shorts downstream. They are all (including this one) too slow and may never react to a voltage surge which can blow through nanometer scale insulation in silicon because a damaging surge voltage may not ever cross the current x time envelope needed to trip the breaker.

In this sense the series mode vendors (Furman with SMP, ZeroSurge, Brickwall) are all correct.  You need the upstream filter to slow a surge down long enough to have time to respond.  A breaker isn't it.

@rfagon

You bring up a lot of items, and that's why I initially recommended the Furman with SMP and AVR.  SMP is best in class surge protection, while AVR will ensure your amps and other gear get fed consistently better voltage than your wall outlet might have. 

I've even had contractors using circular saws on the same circuit as my amp and other gear.  The voltage never ever wavered.

Your point about the difference in clamping (let through) voltages is also correct.  Whole house units are not intended to protect your most delicate electronics, and the NEC as well as manufacturers recommend they be supported by point of use protection.   I wrote about this in detail here, but series mode protection (Furman with SMP, ZeroSurge, Brickwall) is faster and clamps lower, plus usually cut off during brown outs and white outs.

@mikhailark 

Probably not.  That's why I recommend Furman.  ZeroSurge also has a big presense in the pro market.

PS - Furman and Panamax are owned by the same parent company and some equivalent features are available through Panamax as well but be careful as Furman and Panamax have a lot of models with different feature sets.  The minimum I recommend is the Furman with SMP & LiFT. 

@panzrwagn

I would also check out Ting - www.tingfire.com - an electrical arc fault detector.

Oh, that’s pretty cool, honestly. :) The NEC has been steadily going towards more arc fault detection in the home. They went from 1 per bedroom to 1 in every 120V circuit in the home pretty much. You can upgrade most breakers to AFCI, but none of them have the cool reporting in this unit.

I had a Furman unit with voltage readout.  That's why I ended up getting a unit with AVR.  I could see how much my voltage wavered through the day, up to 130V peaks when I was in a high rise.

Now that I'm in a home I get long term, seasonal and daily voltage swings which my PC doesn't care about, but the AVR keeps me +_ a few volts, or it shuts down. Nothing in between.

My 2015 house in the American Southwest has a breaker board that trips if you burp too loudly. So I just run two entry level Furman power strips, which occasionally trip. I had an electrician inspect my $30K system. It's all class D.  He said the amp draw was nowhere near overload.