@sns yes, obviously, and I agree. I do have that setup. The problem is that I have a second audio system at the other end of the apartment.
@erik_squires (and @fthompson251) please correct me if I misunderstood, but after each ethernet run to each of my two audio systems (one of them is over 40'), I have a short fiber-optic "moat" which gets reconverted to ethernet via etherregens before they enter the audio system; already noted in my original post. Would that not suffice against surges? (And point taken on the iFi.)