Good or Best Surge Protector

Not professing expertise in this area.  Like and trust Mike Holmes who tells of losing $25,000 CA of home appliances from a strike, so afterwards installed a whole house surge protector.  His show always includes installation of a protector.  He endorses the EATON.  His face is on the box, so it must be good.  I have that one installed at the box.....professionally.  Plus a myriad of surge protectors.

I did give a decent 8 outlet Furman power conditioner/surge strip to a friend for his stereo and TV.  His house was struck and the only things that survived were, you guessed it, plugged into the strip.  All wiring and appliances blown.  It's kind of individual event dependent.

Something is probably better than nothing and there are no guarantees.

I have not used the latest crop of power conditioners but in the time period I was playing with them you could hear their effect; I don’t know if, given the state of dirty power in a particular locality, it is worth the trade-off.

I’m currently using whole house surge, and a surge board on the secondary side of the big (10kVa) isolation transformer. No other black boxes.

On less critical stuff, I have, in addition to the whole house, point of use. I probably have at least 3 units or more offline, including a 240 v. step down, a big power conditioner from Richard Gray that ran the video system (not sure it is sonically up for high end audio) and Furman, etc.

I think the value of these things is dependent both on the quality of incoming power as well as the system in which it is utilized.

In terms of protection, to me (thankfully have not experienced it) but a direct strike, all bets are off (unless unplugged). 

In the breaker box.

Best   protection

Does’t have any impact on the sound quality. A power conditionner with surge protection may have one.

Everyone, thank you very much for the great responses and ideas.  I love being able to ask questions on this forum and get such great, thoughtful responses.  I had not thought about the whole home surge protector, which is a great idea.  And 2 of you recommended Environmental Potentials, which I had not heard of.  I will be getting a whole home surge protector, and will look into the EP and others recommended here and then add some kind of surge protector/conditioner inside the house to hook my gear up to.  Don't take possession of the new house til January 28, but this gives me time to get the electrician out there for the whole home surge protector.  Again, to everyone who has responded, thank you so much for your time and your thoughtful responses.  

A whole house + point of use is really best. The whole house is good, but the let through voltage is still high for your delicate gear.

Surge protectors from Brickwall, Furman and TrippLite have much lower let through voltages, so the combination of in-panel and point of use is essential, and what’s recommended. :)

I live in SC now and we get real thunderstorms, and I use what I’m recommending: Whole house by the panel maker, Furman for my audio gear and TrippLites elsewhere. During a bad one my smart light switch had to be reset, but nothing on my Furman or TrippLites had any trouble at all.

I’m not a big believer in uber pricey sockets, but if you are moving into a new home, replacing existing one’s with commercial grade, tamper resistant outlets is probably worthwhile, especially if they’ve used backstab connections. The combination of aging socket + poor reliability of those connections is a real headache Go ahead and replace them for peace of mind. Should be ~ $30 for a pack of 10.