Newbie to this forum and home theaters (1 Viewer)

[Videofrank]

This is my very first post here so, please be easy on me.

I had a home theater built in the 3rd floor (attic) of my home. Actually I had the walls and structure done, components go in Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. My question is about power. I have read a lot about this subject from a lot of sources. I can't really figure out what to do. All the home theater installers will tell you that you need to buy one of those Monster Power things (HTS 5100, HTS 3600). But some people have told me and I have read here, that these things are useless. My main problem is that I've spent close to $15K in components and I would like some kind of protection. So if I have to spend a couple hundred for piece of mind, so be it. I would like something that protects me from surges, voltage irregularities, and maybe some battery backup (to give me time to power down components) If my components matter here they are:

7.2 Home Theater Setup
Source: Cablevision cable box
Receiver: Pioneer Elite VSX-84TXSi
DVD Player: Pioneer Elite DV79AVi
CD Player: Pioneer Elite PD-F17
Gaming: Playstation 3
Front Speakers: Paradigm Studio 100
Center: Paradigm Studio CC-570
Surrounds: Paradigm Studio ADP-470
Rears: Paradigm Studio ADP-470
Subwoofers: Paradigm Seismic 10

forgot to add projector: Mitsubishi HC5000BL

Thanks

 

[Allan Jayne]

Whether you buy one big uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or several small ones is up to you. I would want a UPS for the projector so that there will be time to shut it down with the fan still going in case of power failure. There is an advantage to having something, such as the audio, not on a UPS so that there will be obvious advance warning of a power failure before the projector's UPS runs out of battery power.

You might want to have the projector ceiling outlet and maybe a few others outlets on a circuit that does not go down to the breaker panel but instead terminates in an outlet box with a male receptacle on the wall in the theater or in the next room. You would plug an extension cord onto the male receptacle to lead to one UPS and plug that UPS into another outlet.

All surge protectors contain at least one expendable element such as a diode that shorts most of the surge to neutral or ground while leaking (costing) little or no electicity under normal conditions. The amount of surge protection depends on the size (and probably cost) of that element. Unfortunately in most cases you won't know if and when a surge has occurred that has expended (blown) that element resulting in no further surge protection and also possible equipment damage at that moment. Some of the more expensive surge protectors may have an indicator light that tells you.

Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

 

[Cees Alons]

Hello Frank,

Welcome to the forum!

Most people are replying to the copy of this thread you posted here, so I'll close this one to avoid confusion and unnecessary use of forum "bandwidth".