In my quest to find all the right components for my home theatre....including the best
DVDs for surround sound. I have heard rumours that I may need something to control electrical surges that may blow my electronics. Is that something I should consider, and if so what do I buy?
P.S. Please give your comments on the best
DVDs for surround sound that I may consider for my up coming selection
There are many options if you want to use surge protection, from strips to power centers.
I use a Monster power center mainly for the convenience of having something to plug all my compnents into, and it looks good.
A couple movies to show off some good LFE and surround effects can be found if you do a search on this forum as it's been discussed before. A couple I use are War of the Worlds and the just released Pirates of the Caribbean.
I use a Power solution from PureAV in my setup. I know that Monster also offers products. I would seriously consider this, especially if you have experienced power issues around your home.
For DVDs, I like DVDs that are DTS encoded. I've started a collection of Concert DVDs over the past couple of years. The best one I have for audio quality is Eagles Farewell I Tour, Live from Melbourne. On the movie side, the bombing run scenes in Pearl Harbor are awesome. They will make your pant legs shake!
Cheers
There's a whole big chunk of info in
this thread from September '04. Wow, did I used to get riled up.
Bren R.
I just bought 3 of these Cyberpower HT Surge Protectors. I didn't want to fool around because I had some nasty surges last summer which damaged my projector and A/V processor. These units protect up to 6000 joules which is about as high a rating as I could find after a week of research.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1557668&CatId=232
Do you guys plug your amps into your surge protectors? Bren, you've given me some advice on this before, but it's interesting: I contacted Outlaw support regarding plugging my 7125 into the suppressor. Got a quick response from Steve, who saw no problem for the 7125, but also mentioned that the Outlaw techs recommend plugging directly into the wall outlet. Seems like there are contrasting opinions even among the experts...
I plug the HT stuff into a 2 into 6 wall gang and straight into the heart of Manitoba Hydro, not even a surge protector.
Maybe I should blow the big $15 wad and get a surge protector, but... I'm not that concerned about the solid state electronics getting damaged.
In fact in my life, I've damaged probably 2000% more equipment with static than I have via bad AC.
Bren R.
Mark, I've never used anything for AV equipment, which is built to take a fair amount of surge, since engineers are aware of it.
Check this out: Part of a PM from Alan a few weeks back:
Quote:
I also spoke to my colleague, Amie, at Axiom. They had a huge storm and power surges/outages a few weeks ago. She also has an APC/UPS unit (about $300, she said) for all her computer stuff and none of that was damaged, nor were any AV components that were plugged into(inexpensive) power bars. However, the gear that was not plugged into power bars, including two EP600 subwoofers, had the amplifiers totally fried. So was a prototype Axiom power amplifier.
Ouch.
Time to put my sub on a power strip...
Just to clarify that PM, we lost the equipment in HUGE power fluctuations when our generator lost its regulator. The power goes out here roughly every third month - surge, surge, brownout, surge, surge, surge - and that hasn't ever damaged any of our electronics. I'm just not positive that is a good example. Other rural-livers might be able to better advise you.
{shudder} The smell of burning 600s is not pleasant! When all the lights turned crazy bright and the EP600s emitted an odor, I made a run for my little home theater. I had to get over a nightstand and behind my bed in a heartbeat to grab the power cord for my 500 - I practically skinned my tummy on the phone on the night stand! It was hard to know where to run - I also unplugged my UPS but didn't unplug a phone with a bluetooth headset and it was fried - not much survives that sort of surging, I guess. {/shudder}
So there you have it... when the regulator on the gennie goes and you're running an EP500 on 220, things start to smoke.
Bren R.
