I'm broken hearted and confused...

[PHC1]

Yes, I've been a little down for the past few days... It all happened on Saturday evening when suddenly there was what must have been a power surge of some sort.... Two light bulbs blew out in the room, followed by a power outage, my back up generator coming on and then the power restored in a few minutes. I went to bed without investigating since it seemed so common place except for the light bulbs that blew. Sunday morning I discovered the lights in my office were still out so I went to the basement to check the breakers. I found 4 breakers tripped over all. All breakers reset, I went past the theater and heard a clicking sound.... My heart sank as I knew something must have happened.

Yep, for some odd reason, my JVC RS35U, a $10k projector was making a clicking sound while still being off. The Lumagen HDMI CAT6 extender box on top of the projector was dark with no LED signs of life... I unplugged the projector which by the way was plugged into a PS Audio Soloist Premier receptacle along with the Lumagen HDMI extender....

Moving on to the rack. I noticed my $5k Lumagen Radiance XE processor was in the standby mode with the LED red.... I pushed the on button on the remote and .... nothing!

Yep, the JVC projector, the HDMI extender boxes and the Lumagen processor are toast.

The Lumagen was plugged into the PurePower2000 power conditioner and THANK GOD, there was nothing else that was affected as far as I can tell right now. So why the Lumagen processor problem??? Well, I and my A/V guy that stopped by believe the spike went down the HDMI line to the Lumagen processor over to the rack and was stopped there by the poor Lumagen processor before going any further.



After working up the courage to turn on the Krell processor and the 3 D'Agostino amps as well as the two Bryston and checking all of them along with the Wilson speakers all of which seemed fine, Thank GOD! I headed upstairs to make a cup of coffee and reflect on all of this. I decided to turn on the Sonos in the kitchen to play some music... Nothing!

Ok, upstairs I went to my 9 zone Sonos rack with the 2 Furman power conditioners, 9 sonos boxes and 2 Arcam MX8, 8 channel amps... Everything appears powered on and ready except no sound from any of the zones! What the #$%#@!!!

I swapped a sonos box that was working from the basement and still could not get sound coming out of the Arcam amps. Then the Furmans shut down... I powered them back up and tried again, nothing and the Furmans shut down again... Yep, obviously the power spike made it up here as well and wrecked havoc with the power conditioners and the amps.

Nothing else in the house seemed to be affected. Another words, all my computers, laptops, TVs, etc... etc.. with no power conditioners or surge protectors took any damage!!!

How's that for some irony!!!


I am p^ssed! This is at least $20k worth of damage not including the expensive HDMI cables that need to be replaced, the man hours needed to take the projector down, the rack with all the neatly wired sonos zones, etc....

I have never had anything like this happen before and certainly not with 2 of the respected brand names in the power conditioning world involved at the same time!!!!

[chessman]

Serge, that just sucks. I wonder if you took a lightning hit? This has me rethinking my surge protection strategies. What a bummer!

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by chessman

Serge, that just sucks. I wonder if you took a lightning hit? This has me rethinking my surge protection strategies. What a bummer!

No lightning storms that evening. I heard there was an accident where a car hit a pole and someone saw an intense white light outside, not sure if these two events were related... Perhaps a transformer blew up... I don't know. My power company did not tell me anything helpful at all.

[Masterlu]

Oh that Sux big time; I still remember when my Florida home actually took a lightning strike to the roof.

The Fire Dept came through my home with digital heat detectors in full attire w/ Scott Air Pac's. I was lucky, all we lost was one light dimmer and a PS3.

It's an Insurance Claim for sure, so sorry to hear this Serge.

[chessman]

They would have to sedate me if that happened to me. I know it is just "stuff" and replaceable, but the frustration must be maddening.

[PHC1]

My theater is down, I can't watch any movies, I am depressed and p^ssed off.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

Oh that Sux big time; I still remember when my Florida home actually took a lightning strike to the roof.

The Fire Dept came through my home with digital heat detectors in full attire w/ Scott Air Pac's. I was lucky, all we lost was one light dimmer and a PS3.

It's an Insurance Claim for sure, so sorry to hear this Serge.

Yep, I spoke to my insurance agent, I'm covered as far as I was told minus the deductible of course... I'll have my A/V guys go over everything and write up a letter with description of the gear involved, replacement values, etc.. What a pain in the butt though not to mention the expense and aggravation. I also can't stand mysteries like this. I mean what the hell happened??? The surge protectors and power conditioners, the PS Audio and Furman didn't help!!!
Do I get a whole house surge protector or what???

[JFR0317]

I'm very sorry to hear about your problems, Serge. I do have a whole house surge protector. While it hasn't completely immunized me from power surges, I haven't had anything damaged beyond repair since getting it. I also have almost all of my microprocessor-based electronics connected to uninterruptible power supplies (battery backup) as well, which I think provides even more protection.

[TommyC]

I am surprised the PP didn't protect the gears.

[Ritmo]

So sorry to read about this Serge. Incredible that even with surge protection there is so much damage.

I hope all of it can be corrected soon.

Hang in there!

Mike