When I bought my tv a few years ago I purchased a Monster surge protector (before I realized how overpriced Monster products are). It was about $100(!) for 1850 joules of protection. Is this adequate for my home theater? Should I upgrade?

TNT, AV equipment is designed to routinely handle surges of hundreds of volts and an extremely unlikely surge of more than a few thousand volts(e.g. an almost direct lighting strike)would destroy the power cords before it reached the equipment. A surge protector might be of some possible use(I use none)fot the in-between area and what you bought is adequate, although as usual the Monster is greatly overpriced and you could have gotten more for $20-$30.

I have to disagree with John on this one.

At any given time, I might have $150,000 worth of equipment plugged into the wall and have lost equipment in the past to "electrical issues"...certainly not direct strikes but more than a spark from a dry room.

ALL of my equipment is connected through suppressors and voltage regulators from Furman, Tripplite, Monster and APC...despite that there's a "whole house" lightning arrestor on my main panel.

One of the issues that people face in a HT environment actually makes it more vulnerable than my professional equipment: There's cable/satellite coming in, and maybe telephone as well. Even with a whole-house lightning protector, I've lost TiVos, credit-card verifying apparatus, etc.., from surges on telephone lines.

Despite all that, I STILL agree that Monster is overpriced and use this model from TrippLite in my HT:


It ran about $130 (compared to Monster's $250 equivalent) and offers coax and phone protection as well. It's the model HTPowerbar10 and you can find info on it here. There's many online dealers for it; a Google search will bring up many good choices.

i got an 8-plug surge protector, rated at 1800 joules, at ratshack for around $40 bucks. it also has the adaptors for cable and phone hook-up. i have yet to have any probs from it.

bigjohn

I've got the same inexpensive solution as BigJohn, as just as important, my insurance is for replacement value.

Your SP should be fine...I wouldn't worry about it.

If you're the truly paranoid type - look to a Furman PM-8, we use PL-8s (chances are you don't need the rack lights!) in our road racks (never know what you'll get for power on location) - a quick Google says they're available for $190 or so online. They're a no-nonsense professional solution that also adds power conditioning and a volt/ammeter to measure draw for less than Noel Lee's neatly painted Monster power bar.

Having said that, my HT stuff is plugged into a 6-plug gang directly into the wall, and the computer systems go into Energizer UPS' and straight into the wall there too.

Bren R.