dvds4u

I spent $10 on one that has stored power + $10,000 warranty on products

lordzeppelin

Aside from joining the fray about monster, I did a bit of research on this for a month trying to decide what my new 57" RPTV should be plugged into with my Denon 3803 and such...

I found Tripp Lite to be the best bang for the buck. The Isobar 8 Ultra is one of the best I could find. A friend of mine is a master electrical foreman at a hospital rewiring project, and everything they are using in the hospital is manufactured by the same company that does Tripp Lite. Now this isn't home theater, but there's a certain amount of clean power that's going to flow through a hospital, expecially in certain wards and such...anyways, I found that Monster is probably a third choice, because of price, not features. In between, I've found that Belkin has pretty good surge products, as does APC.

I ended up with a Belkin Pure A/V strip, which is aluminum and has one hell of a rating around, AND I got it during the latest of belkin.com's 50% off sales for $50 shipped. I still want a Tripp Lite, and will probably get one soon and split off a few components on to one strip.

So I guess what I'm saying is that the Tripp Lite products are superb, as are the Belkin products, and the Monster products, it just depends on how much you feel like spending. I'm more than happy with the $50 I spent on the belkin, and would love to spend $50 more and get a tripp lite too. That way I'd have 2 strips, even distribution, and still be $50 under the monster products...

DVD_O_Rama

What Monster products are you referring to?

mee2

Well, you guys have been most helpful. I eneded up buying one from Lowe's, $30 with 3150 joules and a $150,000 lifetime equipment guarantee.

gcribbs

no. a 50% mark up is based on the sales price not the cost. so what price do you have to mark it to such that a 50% off discount equals the cost.

so a $100 item marked up 50% would retail for $200. so if I gave you 50% off the $200 price you would be buying it at my cost of $100.

Many cables are marked up 50% or more so I would not throw too many stones at Monster Cable for this.

das Monkey

Yeah, cable is crazy. I've seen CAT5 cable marked up 80 points or more.

das

magicman

So, has anyone ever needed to collect on one of those equipment warranties that come with many of the power strips?

Brian Shannon

No because my 9 year old Panamax ($200 at that time) has protected me everytime. My power flickered 5 seperate times yesterday due to high winds. When this surge protector is about 3% of the total value of the quipment plugged into it, that has been a good investment IMHO.

Cusm

Has anyone ever seen cost on audio equipment, especially speakers? These are marked up at least 50%. Those [insert mfg name] speakers you just paid $350 each for, cost the retailer about $150-175 each. Why does everyone not jump on this and complain what a rip off company x-y-z is? Monster is marked up just as high as any other cable mfg is, including everyone's favorite AR. Look at a cheap company, Belkin, I bought a USB extension cable that retailed at $20, I bought it at cost + 5% for $2.37. This is a much bigger rip off than anthing monster does.

Sorry for the rant. BTW I have all Monster only because I got a good deal through Monster and bought about $1000 worth of cables for $340, including one of their $350 power conditioners. I need an extra optic cable now and will go to partsexpress.com.

Brian Shannon

For the same reason people buy an expensive car and then complain about the price of tires or gas.

teddydogg

After reading this I guess I am still a little foggy on some of this stuff. Are most of these surge protectors that are mentioned coming with clean power? Is this a big deal? Or more of a reason to sell stuff? I had been looking at a Monster Cable MP-HTS800HP(which I can get for about $60) because I was told that the clean power feature is definitely something you would want with a home theater. Any information on this or even better a website someone knows that would educate me on all this stuff would be greatly appreciated.

Brian Shannon

http://www.panamax.com/

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/surge-protector2.htm

http://www.brickwall.com/conditn.htm

http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/pr...25&IntroType=0

mee2

I personally don't buy Monster products because i feel they're overpriced. Mark up or not, i can buy a set of Microsoft Xbox component cables for 1/3 of the price of Monster's with little or no difference in performance. The last Monster product i bought was an S-video cable that stopped working ater less than 2 years of light use. I see buying Monster products as purchasing gold plated hubcaps for your car....

jumbojp

I have a $200 Panamax, mainly because they have a good reputation for protecting equipment, but it has those pretty lights on it and looks good in my rack. It is also fun too watch how much power a 600 watt amp draws while powering a few subs.

It also has switched, unswitched, delayed turn on outlets, telephone and coax protection. Those were features I wanted and most cheap models dont offer all that.

That being said I have a $10 IBM surge protector on my $3000 PC and that works fine and I feel fully protected with it. That setup didnt need all the connections, just coax for cable modem so $10 was the right price.

Since I heard monster mentioned here someplace....I have a monster s-video and I hate it, the connectors are so heavy the damn thing wiggles loose all the time, I replaced it with a cobalt cables s-video cable which is great and seemes to have a better picture than the monster cable at the same price. I slapped the monster on the bedroom tv where it collects dust as it should until I need a thick,useless 3 foot cord for something else.

Geofferson

I bought a quality surge protector - wasn't $150, but I think it was around $40.

mrchri5

I've read that unless the outlet is very close to a earth ground the surge protectors are pretty much useless and in some rare cases can do more damage than good. you would be much better off getting a pro to install a proper whole house surge protector for your home to make sure its done right. do a search on google groups and you could find some real info on this subject.

Roto

In 15 years I've never had a surge protector that was more than about $40. Never had a lightning strike or any major surges that I know of, but have been through plenty of blackouts. I think of the surge protectors I've had, the best feature was one that stays off until you hit the reset switch on it whenever it loses power. That's great for times the power is flickering on and off so the devices don't turn back on until you know power is back to normal.

I guess I have been through one power surge when I got a short circuit from a computer power supply. It burnt out a fuse in a $30 APC surge protector and popped the breaker switch in the house. Everything plugged into the surge protector was fine.

nekobus

Whatever model you buy, be sure to get something which also includes protection for your coax connections (cable, DSS). They can also kill your gear just like the power cables.