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Brickwall Surge Protector

post #1 of 25
7/21/07 at 6:25am
Thread Starter 
any comments on this product.




http://brickwall.thomasnet.com/item/...aud?&forward=1
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post #2 of 25
7/21/07 at 12:45pm
I looked into surge protection a while back. Some people claim only Brickwall are any good, others say it's a load of bunk.

The biggest problem is a lack of reviews and of reports on effectiveness. Few outfits have the equipment required to properly review surge protectors. You see people posting on forums, but most of it is "I bought one and my equipment didn't blow up." Well, I didn't buy one, and my equipment didn't blow up either

I currently use a TrippLite protector. Certainly, I have had the likes of Belkin fail to do anything useful in the past, and my equipment was damaged. Belkin also make it next to impossible to claim on their warranties.

The best solution is a proper UPS, one where power is supplied from the battery all the time and thus completely isolated from the mains. The mains does charge the battery, but is not directly connected to the UPS outputs. Unfortunately, these kinds of UPS units are expensive, heavy and often noisy as they need cooling for the battery.

I'd love to get a Brickwall or similar, but they are not available in Europe.
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post #3 of 25
7/21/07 at 1:18pm
I've been using one with my HT set-up for over a year now and have had 0 troubles with it and my house gets a fair amount of brownouts. I was told a power conditioner would help increase the life of the bulb of my rear projection LCD TV. Whether that's true or not I can't say but, again, I've had 0 problems to this point. I'm a fan enough to have recently bought another to plug my home Head-Fi rig into.

I also use APC UPS' for my computer and home server and they've worked very nicely as well.
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post #4 of 25
7/21/07 at 2:13pm

I'm a happy owner of one

I own one of these Brickwall units. I bought it primarily as a power filter rather than as a surge protector. I live in Philadelphia where noise in the power is frequently high, and greatly interferes with the sound quality that an amp can deliver. Since buying the Brickwall early in 2004, I really have not noticed periods where the power quality is substantially interfering with the sound quality. Prior to buying the Brickwall, I frequently noticed periods where my audio equipment did not deliver anywhere near its usual level of sound quality. And, BTW, I read that it's a very good surge protector. I remember distinctly, when I first plugged my audio gear into the Brickwall and listened, I could hear the quieter background level, the tighter bass, more tuneful mids, more translucent highs and the added details revealed by the lower background. This unit has nicely handled the problem that I purchased it for, and I'm quite happy with it.
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post #5 of 25
7/21/07 at 2:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by warrior05 View Post
I've been using one with my HT set-up for over a year now and have had 0 troubles with it and my house gets a fair amount of brownouts.
The Brickwall will not help at all with brownouts. It cannot increase the available voltage, only block high voltage spikes and filter some noise.

I'm not having a go or anything, please don't misunderstand me. It's just that your post is very typical of what a lot of people say. I plugged it in and my equipment didn't explode.

What I'm waiting for is someone who has one of these on the same ring main as some other, unprotected equipment. Then I'll go and erect a lightning rod outside their house. Hopefully the lightning will destory the unprotected equipment and trip the Brickwall, but the protected stuff will survive.
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post #6 of 25
7/21/07 at 2:42pm
I have two units, one regular for my TV and the other for my home headphone system and computer which is the audio version. I have noticed that those real quick times when the lights blink on and off that my UPS don't beep like they used to. So it has some, maybe a half second, delay on the power so that it catches up during those moments.

These units were built and designed for the military to ensure that they would not burn up under spikes like the chip based units will.

I am thinking again of getting another of the audio units. Regular units are 15 amps internal and external. Audio units are 15 amp external and 20 amp internal component rated.
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post #7 of 25
7/21/07 at 2:58pm
Thread Starter 
thanks for the comments everyone. very helpful.
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post #8 of 25
7/21/07 at 3:05pm
I think I have heard that some people have found that when using heavy duty power amps for speakers that there is some degradation in the sound. I think for the duty in a headphone system that this is not an issue.
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post #9 of 25
7/28/07 at 9:56pm
I use Brickwall units as my 1st tier of protection (from the wall). Wouldn't have it any other way, since typical surge protectors DO stop protecting after a finite number of surges.
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post #10 of 25
7/28/07 at 11:47pm
Thread Starter 
i actually went ahead and ordered one. they make 2 units for audio use. not sure it will make any difference to the sound, but it should protect my G08 and Apache, which is really what matters.
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post #11 of 25
7/29/07 at 7:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nospam View Post
I use Brickwall units as my 1st tier of protection (from the wall). Wouldn't have it any other way, since typical surge protectors DO stop protecting after a finite number of surges.
This is true, but some better quality MOV based protectors have a light to let you know when that happens.

Does anyone make a Brickwall style protector for Europe? All we seem to have are MOV based units. Then again, MOV+filter might be just as good as the Brickwall, and a lot cheaper.
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post #12 of 25
7/29/07 at 10:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vcoheda View Post
i actually went ahead and ordered one. they make 2 units for audio use. not sure it will make any difference to the sound, but it should protect my G08 and Apache, which is really what matters.

Darn, I was going to direct you to the OEM, so you could save some money:

http://www.zerosurge.com/HTML/standalone.html
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post #13 of 25
7/29/07 at 12:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by riffer View Post
Darn, I was going to direct you to the OEM, so you could save some money:

http://www.zerosurge.com/HTML/standalone.html
Doh!!! I forgot about this and that is where I ordered my second one from. Sorry 'bout that!
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post #14 of 25
7/29/07 at 2:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nospam View Post
I use Brickwall units as my 1st tier of protection (from the wall). Wouldn't have it any other way, since typical surge protectors DO stop protecting after a finite number of surges.
They might stop protecting over time, and this is why a good companies' warranty comes into play.

I use Tripp-Lite, but there are other great products such as APC and Brickwall. MonsterCable is good too, but way overpriced.
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post #15 of 25
7/29/07 at 4:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prozakk View Post
They might stop protecting over time, and this is why a good companies' warranty comes into play.
I tried to make a claim years ago. Basically they make it next to impossible. I am apparently not alone, if you check usenet there are loads of people complaining about the claims procedure.

Basically you have to send affected equipment to the manufacturer, who decides if it was an electrical surge that damaged it. The cost of doing so is prohibitive for smaller items and there is no guarantee they will pay up anyway. They could just randomly decide it was something else that killed your equipment.
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