having survived a lightning strike at my house, I am a "voice of experience".
Surge protectors are wonderful
.
Just remember, surge protectors are needed on every electrical device, and on EVERY wire coming into the house.
My lightning strike was at the transformer on the power pole at the road. Three neighbors and my house were all fed by that power pole.
We were able to track the path of the power surge by the equipment items that were damaged.
Nearly every microwaves, telephones etc that were not on surge protectors in these 4 houses were fried. Insurance company loved that claim, one company had all 4 houses. A little hard to deny the claim with transformer parts strewn about the neighborhood.
My complete computer system was saved by one of those cheap WallyWorld surge protectors. But my stereo equipment which shared the same surge protector as the computer system, had a little problem because the surge protectors did not have a coaxial connection.
The lightning traveled down the cable line coming into the house, burned out the cable junction box at the exterior of the house, traveled down the cable wire into the back of my monitor.
Toshiba made a wonderful monitor. But it could not take a direct strike without some damage. The CABLE IN and CABLE OUT connections as well as the internal wiring between those connections were fried.
The Sony BetaMax took the direct hit with absolutely NO damage. Says something about Sony doesn't it?
But the NAD preamp was fried, total loss. (Cable into TV, out to VCR, VCR out to preamp).
Not bad for just a little lightning.
My advice.... you can never have enough surge protectors. Just make sure to have a surge protector on every circuit coming into the equipment.
