Surge protector

I will say that so far in my life I have NEVER experienced any type of surge activity that damaged any of my components, and once upon a time I never even used to unplug my gear during thunderstorm activity--I was happily oblivious.

@jea48

I think this may very well be location dependent. Living in SC, I randomly asked a few people who are NOT techno or audiophiles if they’ve lost equipment to power surges and everyone I asked had. One both in the Berkshires and in South Carolina.

I’ve lost gear or been present when gear went bad half a dozen times in my life. In the last 3 years alone I’ve lost a laptop (plugged in directly) and a cable modem to surges. When I moved in there was in fact a burnt out surge protector still screwed into an outlet, presumably where a TV had been. I lose power about 4x a year due to storms, plus we have about 3 power incidents per year not related to storms when the power goes out or my UPS on my computer has to intervene or my Furman shuts the power off to the stereo or both.

The differences in experience based on geographic location certainly justifies why readers may or may not wish to spend the money for the extra protection. I 100% understand that. What I don’t understand are those who only focus on direct strikes, cause that’s rarely been how I lost gear.

I should point out that blackouts are potential causes of surges, both when the power gets disconnected and when the power is restored.  As a child in Atlanta we lost many appliances when power came back on.

As far as power going out and coming right back on, or going out and staying out 5 or 10 minutes or an hour, that happens here in western Pa. all the time, and often there is no apparent reason, such as a T’storm, for it. In the past I did not unplug my equipment, and in the days of yore I did not even trip my breaker. That wave of paranoia started quite recently. Probably since I started reading posts here.

I will say that I have never experienced any component or appliance damage. But I am not arguing with you guys about it. I never started wearing my seat belt until I lost my drivers license for a year when I was 31, and I never was injured or killed in a car wreck, but I was lucky and I know that they save lives. I guess I have been lucky with my appliances and components as well.