Good post chess. I don't buy into the mega dollar power filters etc but I see no harm in running a decent surge protector. I had a an old Parasound HCA 1500 blow up right in front of me as a result of a surge due to construction in my area. The guys knocked out some kind of box and it caused all sorts of problems in the area. Since then, anything worth anything in my house is running through one.
The one exception to this however that may sound odd is when I have the luxury of having higher priced and better built amps in my house. There is enough in there already to look after most surges. Odyssey, Parasound and a few others actually push people away from using anything in the way of inline filtration or surge protection.
