Would u hook up a $5000 amp to the wall. Both of my amps have been custom upgraded from factory spec. My next amp showing up has 160000 main rail of caps. The one I plugged into the high relay out on the h15 had 164000 main rail cap output. I guess I over worry about these amps being damaged.
Power amps use more power and all surge protection has current limits, as well as being a limiting factor in the current that can pass through those circuits, especially if it uses simple devices like MOVs. Some are said to be 'parallel' to the path from the wall to the equipment and those could be used, theoretically, but many brands have outlets specifically for power amps, so the answer to your question about hooking up a $5K power amp to the wall, yes but it's not about the price, it's about the current needed.
I assume you mean 164k uF and that's likely the cause of the failures. Do you hear a thump when the amplifier turns on? That indicates that it doesn't have a 'soft turn on' circuit, which can come in the form a sequential power-up. Slamming anything with a full load isn't a good thing, especially if the filter caps drain after the amp is shut down.
Best practice- use whole house and local protection where it' needed, which is usually AVRs, processors, source devices and things like those. Power amps don't typically need it because they're less sensitive. Power companies are supposed to provide 120VAC +/- 10% and that's not enough to cause problems for most equipment and certainly not for anything that uses lower voltage from a wall wart (many newer TVs, computers, some CD/DVD/BD players, etc).
