Surge protection

I am past the hearing acuity phase of my life so I am not expressing an opinion on SQ.  But in my years of selling audio in a coastal area prone to thunderstorms I have seen plenty of so-called surge suppressors fail to protect from surges. Popular brands like Panamax and Monster in particular…the ones that rarely ever failed were from Surge-X. Recently, Audioquest has been effective.  Furman is now  co-owned with Panamax, but I don’t think their technology is identical.

@crustycoot  - Panamax does have some units (but certainly not all) which have SMP and LiFT from Furman. 

Just to be sure people understand this:

Whole house surge protection is important BUT they have high clamping voltages.  All makers and the NEC recommend you use them in addition to point of use protection for sensitive equipment.

I too have been a crusader for Tripp Lite’s Isobar Ultra series for over 20 years now, and I’ll tell you why. Even though I incorporate them in my home audio system’s (mainly from my experience in the professional field); in my professional radio broadcast applications, where on-site broadcast towers can be struck by lightning sometimes 20 times a year (sending lightning strike discharge currents into the AC system), and two to three annual AC utility neighborhood outages are typical (requiring generator power switchovers) in our broadcast buildings, my broadcast studios required dependable surge protection. I found that in the Tripp Lite Isobar Ultra series. In all of the hundreds of these units that I’ve purchased over the years, never once did I have one fail on me, while at the same time protecting all of the equipment plugged into them. Compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment they hourly protect; I’ve determined that they’re fully capable of front-line combat duty. They are considered point of use protection, while the buildings themselves also utilize whole building surge supressors at the utility power entrance.

From an audio standpoint, I feel they really do the job there too. Placing them at home on inductive sources like refrigerators, dehumidifiers, and my furnace; they have filtered out all of the pops and clicks I would normally hear on my audio system when those devices would turn ON and OFF. Current liming? Not from what my ears tell me. I even trust them on my power amps. Current limiting? I’ve seen thousands of amps of power discharge through small 24 AWG telephone wires from lightning strikes, and those wires still not vaporize. Because of that, I’m not sure any wire is current limiting.

Tripp Lite Isobar Ultra 4-Outlet Surge Protector

I totally agree with erik_squires and dpop .

I had my system connected to a Tripp-Lite when the neutral wire to my building broke sending 240 volts into my building , burning out 2 refrigerators , exploding light bulbs and taking out the Tripp-Lite which saved my system from any damage .

I now have almost everything in my house connected to a Tripp-Lite Ultra ,  but I still have the amp connected directly into the wall due to the current rating of the TLU.