Your assessment is spot on perfect! I like the analogy of lifeboats, since that is just about the best possible way to describe it. It is important to understand the average lightening bolt has enough energy to lift the Titanic 6 miles from the bottom of the ocean and set it on a barge 5 feet above the water. We are talking millions of volts and hundred of thousands of Amps.
In addition, the design of surge protectors is not cookie cutter simple. There is as much philosophy in the design as science. IEEE has some test standards to meet which are very good. UL has some design codes to comply with as well, but both are trade offs. Sure, a good surge protector will save your stuff, but only when the lightening bolt is some distance away. The closer it gets, the more the lifeboat starts to leak. A direct hit to your house and your stuff is toast.
Yep, I totally agree with the warm up time. I had an Technics high end analog tuner that took four days to stabilize; it would just drift and drift and drift and drift... My old Spatial preamp took 6 weeks for the sound to really hit home and, gosh, we could measure that warm up in the lab, too!
Here in the Bay Area of CA, we don't get much lightening, when we do it is more of a novelty. Then again, I keep my expensive equipment turned "off" on the big stereo and the home theater, which has much older, so less expensive stuff, is the one that is "on" most of the time. Still, we shut the HT down at night.
So it really comes down to percentages and probabilities. If the probability of a lightening strike close by is high, I'd keep off and it unplugged and have the best surge protector money can buy and maybe go overboard and spring the money for a screen room built inside your stereo room. If it is low, then just off is probably okay with good surge protection. If it is extremely low, then your worries are also very low.
Now that being said, those damn lightening bolts don't come in mathematical order. In other words, you can shuffle a deck of cards the best you can and the probability of the first four cards you pull are four Aces is extremely low, about 1 in 6.5 million. The catch is, the probability isn't zero, and neither is the probability for those lightening bolts.
In addition, the design of surge protectors is not cookie cutter simple. There is as much philosophy in the design as science. IEEE has some test standards to meet which are very good. UL has some design codes to comply with as well, but both are trade offs. Sure, a good surge protector will save your stuff, but only when the lightening bolt is some distance away. The closer it gets, the more the lifeboat starts to leak. A direct hit to your house and your stuff is toast.
Yep, I totally agree with the warm up time. I had an Technics high end analog tuner that took four days to stabilize; it would just drift and drift and drift and drift... My old Spatial preamp took 6 weeks for the sound to really hit home and, gosh, we could measure that warm up in the lab, too!
Here in the Bay Area of CA, we don't get much lightening, when we do it is more of a novelty. Then again, I keep my expensive equipment turned "off" on the big stereo and the home theater, which has much older, so less expensive stuff, is the one that is "on" most of the time. Still, we shut the HT down at night.
So it really comes down to percentages and probabilities. If the probability of a lightening strike close by is high, I'd keep off and it unplugged and have the best surge protector money can buy and maybe go overboard and spring the money for a screen room built inside your stereo room. If it is low, then just off is probably okay with good surge protection. If it is extremely low, then your worries are also very low.
Now that being said, those damn lightening bolts don't come in mathematical order. In other words, you can shuffle a deck of cards the best you can and the probability of the first four cards you pull are four Aces is extremely low, about 1 in 6.5 million. The catch is, the probability isn't zero, and neither is the probability for those lightening bolts.
