I was looking around at my system and I realzed that I do not have surge protection or line conditioning. I went onto the Monster website and see that they have some nice options. I wanted to get thoughts on the items they have and if you have any experience with them, ie Home Theater PowerSource 7000, 5100 or 5000.

Thanks!

Craig, your system does in fact have line conditioning. The power supply section of your 3803 has a transformer, rectifier and filter capacitors which are designed to supply clean DC to the amplifier section; no further processing is necessary.

As to surge protection, although I've never bought one, a simple device in the $20 area might possibly be of some use. Audio equipment handles surges of hundreds of volts routinely and surges above a few thousand volts will destroy the power cord or preceding wiring before it can reach the equipment. There some chance of a surge falling into the in-between strength range and being successfully suppressed by the protector.

Not to disagree with John's excellent advice, but a different opinion:

I don't go for the whole "clean up your AC and your televisions' picture will improve and your audio will sound cleaner" theory, UNLESS you have some particular interference issues.

But, as someone who does NOT live in an area particularly prone to lightning, I have lost equipment to non-direct hits. I have a whole-house lightning arrestor, but have had phone-line surges cause loss of TiVos, credit card swipers, phone systems, etc. (I have an in-house video production company and have many tens of thousands of dollars in equipment to protect).

Anyway, my thought is that for a home theater system, there's a good compromise between a $20 suppressor and a rack-mount $400 unit. This is what I use to not only protect from AC spikes, but telephone and cable as well:

http://www.tripplite.com/products/product.cfm?productID=2812

It runs around $120.

If protection is your driver, check Home Depot. They have a nice surge protector for $0-$50. Look for one with the highest Joules rating you can find. The Home Depot unit is around 2950 Joules.

i got a 2900 joules, 8 plug surge protector from the rat shack for $30 bucks.

bigjohn

Not to mention the family joules.

bigjohn, I believe the Home Depot model also has telephone and cable TV/Satellite connectors if you need them. Does the RS model have them as well?

mine has the cable TV, but not the phone and satellite connectors. THIS is the one i bought, and i believe it was $29 at the store.

they have one like you are speaking of with the satellite and phone jacks HERE for $53. i think the prices are a little less in the store.

bigjohn

Wal-mart has a RCA with phone jacks and cable connections for around $25.00.

What, no Richard Gray fans in here? I guess nobody feels like dropping a couple grand on some protection! lol