California Brownouts and equipment

rosstaman: you might want to review the thread titled "California electrical shortage audio," that began on 02/15/01. It should answer at least some of your questions. -kelly

Thanks Kelly!

Rosstaman: I live in LA (West Hollywood proper) and have not experienced any noticable damage to our equipment. Everything is surge protected (the computer is on a RS surge protecter and an APC line conditioner) and the main Hi-fi is running from a Monster HTS-200 line conditioner. We have only had a few periods of "zero power" that lasted a few minutes at around 6:00am. We did go through a two month period where we were not receiving enough current (per the alarm on the APC that chirped away merrily 24 hours a day) but this cleared up 3-4 weeks ago. I spoke with a dealer up in Canyon Country that lost a major digital piece due to a power surge following a brown out, but I assume that the unit was running unprotected. Low amperage is a slow death for components but I assume that the main risk is when the power comes back on. I don't recall what your setup is but the Monster 2000's are only $125.00 new on line. I can't recall off hand where I purchased it for this price but will be happy to look it up if you are interested. I am planning on picking up a second one anyway in the near future for an experiment that I am planning. The inexpensive surge protecters (designed for audio) that I have tried from RS sound awful on our main rig and the mini system as well, so I cannot recommend them. The Monster sounds great (especially on digital stuff).

Here's the place your looking for Dekay:

http://www.globe-mart.com/computer/surge/monstercable/index.htm

Global Mart has great prices and a 30 day return policy.

http://www.hififorless.com used to have even better prices but all sales were final. As such, that was no big deal if you knew that you really wanted that item. I checked their prices on Sunday night and they have gone up $80 on the hts-2000 ( from $119 to $199 ) and $120 on the hts-2500 ( from $169 to $289 ) since then !!! I would imagine that if you were to call them, you could probably get the old prices.

I have no idea what prompted this advertised price increase, but one might assume that Monster is cracking down on dealers selling below MSRP. Buy them "cheap" while you can !!! Sean
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I assume this monster 2000 cleasn up the ac current? Similar to the mit product but for less?

jd