Considering all the great help I've received here on GFSA I thought I'd share a helpful tip learned through the misery of a client.

Client has a rather large sound system of which part is 4 x 2400w amps in two cabinets. A while ago we recommended that they buy some of those "Ellies Multiplug Surge Protection" things to replace the old coke-spilled dust-filled rubbish that kept messing with the power.

The multiplugs come with a "R 20 000 warranty". Which presumably means if a surge ruins your equipment, you can claim for it. Now we all like seeing things like that, but very few of us (in my experience) really try it or expect those promises to really be followed up (maybe I am just cynical). However, responsible as some administrative staff can be, the little piece of paper that came with the multiplug was completed and sent off to manufacturer for registering with a list of the amplifiers on it and so on.

Recently, a rather nasty storm touched down and completely ruined two of the amplifiers along with the multiplug through a power surge (not sure if it was lightning or just grid dodgyness or whatever). Believe it or not, following the claims procedure the amounts were actually paid out and customer happily could replace the two amplifiers at a fraction of what it would've cost.

I just thought someone might want to know, if you don't have existing insurance for your expensive audio gear against lightning, this might be a cheapish way to obtain such. Just make sure you follow the correct instructions, submit the list of equipment, have the slips ready and saved if you need to claim, don't connect any more multiplugs to the multiplug and so on.

Just read an article re power conditioners (surge protection and noise filtering) for home studio gear. They mentioned Furman power conditioners. Are these Ellies surge protectors more or less the same thing?

PS: I had noise issues with my gear. Bought a T Rex Fuel Tank Jr which took care of a lot of noise. Discovered one of the plugs in my house which I used is faulty. Now I'm really interested in this power conditioners. I'm thinking of using one whever I play out as well. Any advice on which one to get?

Not at all, that's a whole different kind of thing

As I understand it the Furman power conditioners are meant to turn dirty power (with spikes and noise and interference and things like that) into a clean signal.

The multiplug/surge protector type things that the guys like General Electric and Ellies and so on sell is a normal plug just with a fuse or arrestor of some sort to protect (sacrificially) in the event of a surge

PS: I am not an expert! That's as I understand things

Thanks for the "sound" advice.

Yes, which is why we think it was a lightning strike that went into the power line. Either the surge was too much or the protector wasn't fast enough.

Damn interesting stuff! May still go and buy one. Actually my desktop pc crashed twice...turned out it could have been that damn faulty wall plug! Scary shit!

The way I understood the Ellies conditions for this warranty clause is that you can only connect one piece of equipment per surge protector. Meaning if you build a multiplug connecting two amps, it would be void. Maybe I'm wrong...

I checked that out, their conditions differ between the type of surge protector you buy. If normally says "Only for x" devices. So you can't take a multiplug and plug another multiplug in it and so on. You basically have to only use the plugs that is available on the thing. They have some single-device only surge protectors which is more like a passthru protector which I know can only be used for one item