Power amps into surge protector/Conditioner or DIRECT to wall? Final verdict?

I am a bit confused as how to compare devices for their surge protection.

The Furman PST-8, using series mode surge protection, rates their product at 135VAC for the "over voltage shutoff."

Right. So the SMP is always on, there’s no activation lag. It also provides relatively low over-voltage protection. These may not be surges, but long lasting events. This can happen if your electric provider doesn’t balance the loads right.

Shunyata, using a hydraulic electromagnetic breaker, rates their Venom
Amp-1 for 40,000A @ 8/50 microseconds for the "transient protection."

Yep, and it’s just not as good.

• It will short surges to ground, and then you are at the mercy of the house wiring, as well as stress the house wiring. Any issues there will increase the voltage at your gear.
  
• It takes time to activate.
  
• During the surge, it is high current (40,000A), potentially stressing the home wiring, not to mention lighting on fire (see thermally protected MOV videos for examples)
  

The SMP approach is no lag, and low current during a surge hit. The parallel approach always has lag, and is a high current at surge. A high speed surge (and any noise over 3 kHz) on the hot or neutral line MUST appear at the surge protector, instead of the protected gear.

Oh, almost forgot. Of course, look for UL 1449 for a device tested as a surge suppressor.


If it doesn’t have that, especially at these astronomical prices, pretty much write it off.


Here is the spec for Furman's cheapest SMP strip:

https://www.furmanpower.com/product/15a-8-outlet-surge-suppressor-strip-wsmp-lift-and-evs-PST-8

Would you plug your pre-amp into a power conditioner/protector and amp into wall (I have a ss 18 wpc First Watt)?  Thanks for any advice

Surge protection aside, I would personally plug my gear directly into the wall socket only when the outlet is a dedicated line. Otherwise you may get noise from all other devices that are sharing the line. These could include light dimmers, microwave ovens, hair dryers, etc., etc. In addition to noise, the voltage in the line may also fluctuate if you have any appliances which turn on/off - think refrigerator compressor, sharing that line. 

As mentioned above....whole house surge protection.