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Last Saturday lightning destroyed an 80 year old cypress tree in my yard. Debris was blown over 100' away! The tree was one of my favorite things on my property. The other one of my favorite things that was destroyed was my Audio Research amp. Very depressing. I'm still in shock because after talking to insurance company I won't get much of the value because of depreciation. To pile on, my other half said that I'm not buying another one. No "I'm so sorry" or "can I make you a strong drink", etc. What's a man to do?
Follow Ups:
Thank You all for replying to my original post. Lot's of good information to help with decisions. I found a repair shop that will try to fix my amp. Hopefully it is not a "boat anchor" and can provide good sound into the future.
With that said, I'm still in the market for another amp. Not that I won't trust the repair but other components may have been injured by the strike and fail prematurely. I will probably demote this amp to my secondary system where it will get much lighter use and "upgrade" my main system. I want a tube amp!
Here is an update on my lightning strike damaged equipment.
While searching for a repair shop for my ARC SS amp I purchased a Rogue Audio Atlas Magnum with KT-120 tubes, 100 w/ch. All I can say is WOW! I'm hearing things in old recordings that I haven't heard before. Highs are precise, bass is tight and right. This is a very good amplifier.
Back to the ARC. I finally found a shop that would take on the challenge, for a price$$$. Glad I wasn't in a rush because they had it for 5 months but they did revive it from the dead.
I did an A/B comparison between the ARC and Rogue and decided to keep the tube amp in my main system and demoted the ARC to my backroom. I guess it's a win win for sound in my house.
An option is an all-risk policy, rather than a named-perils policy. It's expensive, but my Chubb policy covers my gear at replacement value, and, I just learned, covers my LPs which are in a storage facility that just had a flood. (My unit was spared, thankfully.)
WW
"A man need merely light the filaments of his receiving set and the world's greatest artists will perform for him." Alfred N. Goldsmith, RCA, 1922
> To pile on, my other half said that I'm not buying another one.
If you make your own money, my initial thought is: "buy a new one anyway". Unless of course the result is that your family can't buy food for a month ;-)
You're getting good advice, have someone look at the amp. I have repaired solid state and tube equipment that has been damaged by lightening. As someone mentioned, tube equipment isn't easily damaged and repairs can be reasonable. If you don't have a friend or local repair resource, take the cover off, take some pics and post them here. We should be able to give you an idea if it is worth sending for repair.
...the wife will get over it.
Dean.
reelsmith's axiom: Its going to be used equipment when I sell it, so it may as well be used equipment when I buy it.
sarcasm
tdbr8de-
I am your neighbor along the Gulf Coast in Alabama.
Sorry to read about your tree (Cyprus is a very hard wood) and your amp.
The amp could be replaced/upgraded- not that tree.
Keep me posted on your buying decision. Time for a visit to Wilson Audio of New Orleans. Sidenote: which dealer/retailer did you purchase your gear over the years?
Get a class D amp, I've had good luck with Hypex,
If you must have Tubes Yaqin amps won't break the bank.
If she says you can't spend anything then cancel the phone service, tell her "we" dont have any money for anything anymore.
a lightening strike took out an amp (only one..the other was fine) in my Vandersteen 5A's....Richard rebuilt it and its fine...I got a whole house surge protector....no problems now (who knows what the future brings)...but the sound of the system was improved.
It's worth it.
You don't need a boss.
"To Learn Who Rules Over You, Simply Find Out Who You Are Not Allowed to Criticize."
-Voltaire
Assuming you can find a wife who also mows the lawn... I ain't doing that, cuts into my cigar time :)
I don't have a wife , sometimes I can't live with myself, I couldn't imagine living with someone else as well. No thanks,
Grass is always greener on the other side though. How much does the color green matter to you?
Upgrade your policy. Of course you'll never get hit by lightening again. Sorry about the tree and the amp.
ET
With 'replacement' the insurance company should acquire an equivalent item.
I have replacement coverage.
If you DO have replacement, and they are stiffing you, I would raise Hell.
Find your same amp over on Audiogon.. And tell the insurance to pay up.
Yes I do, however insurance claims on the gulf coast are to be used like "silver bullets" meaning if you make more than one claim within a year you are at risk of being non-renewed. The claim on the tree and the amp (using A-gon price) are not high enough to risk losing my home owners insurance. I know it sounds dumb but losing major insurance and having to go on state sponsored high risk insurance would cost much more out-of-pocket.
People say "why do I pay for insurance?" Good question. The bandits are the insurance companies. I would be better off making a theft claim than a weather related claim.
Anyway, I'm not out of business. I have a couple of amps in my "museum". I initially tried a 1978 GAS Son of Ampzilla. I love the lighted meters but sound was not there. I also own a PS Audio 100 Delta that I'm using now. I can live with it for awhile. Just not the same sound stage as the ARC.
I live somewhere in your described area "southern LA". I understand the insurance thing. We paid an insurance policy for around 20 years and had a relatively small claim following Katrina. They nickeled and dimed us on the costs, paid about 60% and then dropped us.
In a separate instance I also had lightning strike the line feeding my house. It melted half of the breakers and caused a roof leak at the entry point. I was out of town. My wife told me that the AC went out. She called our AC guy and he showed her the breaker box. It was strange. The AC went out first then other things one a a time. We had the breaker box replaced and the roof repaired rather that claim it on insurance. Deductible and costs were similar.
I guess I was lucky in that we didn't lose any appliances.Good luck.
You understand. I live south of I-10 which is the magic line for insurance problems. I know of couple of people that made two weather related claims and lost their coverage. I didn't want this to turn into a slam insurance thread. I thought I would hear more about my controller denying me sympathy for my lost treasure. She never did like my stereo. Maybe she conjured up the storm aiming for my amp?
Now I have to make a decision about what to replace it with. I have a tube preamp so I'm leaning toward a tube amp. Cost is a factor but I can stretch a little for the right amp. I'm driving an old pair of B&W Matrix 804's. Any suggestions?
I thought I-10 was only in FL, but of course that doesn't mean anything to an insurance company. My buddy who lived in Orlando and then Longwood, FL told me it was like the lightning capital of the world. He replaced so many answering machines it was ridiculous and he decided to get the voicemail service from the phone company, we are talking a landline here, this was a long time ago.Your amp probably just needs a set of rectifiers. There is a slight possibility it needs a power transformer.
It is not always lightning hitting the power lines that damages things, sometimes it is the associated EMP. Every wire becomes a generator. The longest wires in there are in the power transformer, or if a tube amp the output transformers maybe.
Most likely the filter caps saved the amp itself, but the surge current shorted out the rectifiers.
The way to check is to use a DBT and disconnect the main rectifiers, if the bulb dims the transformer is still good. Then of course take a DVM and look for shorts. The outputs may well be shorted because that EMP also induced voltage into your speaker wires. But not if it was off and has a protection relay.
I have seen EMPs do some strange shit, seriously. Like making relays inoperative. They check just fine on a DVM but simply won't work. From the same house I had an amp in which the speaker relay would not engage, though it was fine on a static check, and a cassette deck that was autoreverse that used a relay to kick in the other poles of the heads, as opposed to flipping the head over like newer decks. It would reverse but play side A in reverse. Both same house, and same occurrence, came in the same day. In each case, SOME of the turns of the relay coils were shorted but not a dead short that a DVM would have revealed.
In another case a Sony Trinitron CRT got magnetised so much and so evenly that the colors were like reversed. When it wanted red it was blue, when it wanted green it was red, etc. Found out there was a nearby lightning strike when it happened. The internal degausser, and even the shop degausser could not fix it. I had to take a variac and crank it up to beyond line voltage and feed it to the degaussing coil to fix it, and it got hot. I had to take it up to like 150 volts for over ten seconds to do it, because the normal duration and current it used was not enough. This in spite of the fact that it used a 6.3 amp fuse and the inrush, due to the degausser and the main filter cap, which results in a peak current up in the hundreds of amperes. But only for a short time, like maybe 16 mS max.
It might be fixable, but in other bad news, it is possible that your speakers or the crossover components within could be bad now. Not as likely but quite possible.
The EMP from lightning also destroys the electronic ignition in newer lawnmowers and sometimes even cars. (but in many cases the car body acts as sort of a Faraday cage) And strangely, it does not burn out the lightbulbs like a normal power surge. This is because of thermal mass.
When lightning DOES actually hit the power lines it very much depends on where. I have seen like eight inches of quarter inch copper vaporized on a TV circuit board and the fuse was not even blown. And it was quite surprising that once I repaired that it worked. No other faults. What happened there is the "electrical mass" if I may coin a phrase, of the main filter in the power supply saved the rest of the set.
Another thing about this, if you can get it repaired, make sure the shop does a legal, live line leakage test. The procedure is available online as well as in almost every television service manual in this country.
I am an expert in this kinda shit but if you want me to do it you have to ship it up here. I have not really had good luck with UPS, or Fedex. And I hear horror stories about the USPS. I don't know what to tell you. Actually there are people who pack professionally, maybe one of them. The second last place I worked actually did it for like $25, but I have no idea how it is down there. Suffice it to say though that if you remember the old Samsonite luggage commercial where they put a suitcase in the cage with a gorilla, it has to be ready for that. And that adds to the cost.
There has to be someone qualified there. The problem is that they might not give you a warranty. If you get another lightning strike of course that will not be covered.
Without going into detail, I remember fixing things where they said "No matter what". Expensive or with sentimental value. If this is like that, SOMEONE can do it. And insurance should pay for it, as long as it is higher than the deductible. I have dealt with insurance companies before. They can be a pain but read that policy. If they are subrogated to pay do not let them get out of it. That is what the premiums are for. And refunding the premiums does not work under current law. That may change, but as far as I know it has not.
Edits: 06/26/16
Good posting.
I am also south of I-10 (Merairie). When we looked for a location to buy, my wife thought I was obsessed with elevation. We are on the Metairie ridge and are on high ground (relatively). Not saying we couldn't flood, but most everyone else will be floating first. That might not be much of a consultation if it ever happens. After several hurricanes, she is now on the same page.
I'm not that familiar with your speakers. For years I have been an all tube guy. My speakers don't need that much power, and I love the warmth. I really don't care much about what the recording engineer or some audiophile thinks about how a recording should sound. I suffered through that for a while. Now I only care about if the equipment connects me to the music. If you can get enough power, I vote tubes.
There is a pair of VTL 225s on audiogon for $1900 - my second system at present is powered with these (but mine are tubed with KT90s rather than the listed 6550s) - I had the benefit of George Merrill working on them for me a few years back and I have been quite happy with them. They are driving Maggies (1.7s) to quite good effect
You might look at your deductible. I hate dealing with insurance companies, am reluctant to do so as are you, and for that reason I increased my deductible substantially to reflect my real life attitude about claims and my ability to self insure. Something to think about.
Did it do damage to other electrical equipment in your house? Hopefully, no fires.
No other damage discovered yet but other things may fail prematurely over time. The tree exploded, I was told because of the water content. Cost me over $2k to get rid of the tree which was still standing but unstable.
When lightning strikes a tree the sap boils, BOOM!!
Sorry about the amp. Maybe it can be refurbished though. I wouldn't be surprised if the tubes survived. Parts can be replaced.
It is/was a solid state amp. It powered up but screeched and before I could switch it off. I didn't realize that it was damaged or I woudn't have powered it up.
The factory informed me that they do not work on lightning damaged equipment because of the problems associated with multiple damage possibilities. I fully understand their policy.
As far as lightning protection goes, I don't think residential protection is affordable from a bolt that can explode a +70' tree.
I guess this will push me to upgrade! Of course without permission from the other half. Ask forgiveness...
I saw a lightning strike destroy several electronics and appliances inside a house here in Miami once. We were watching TV in my friend's living room when the bolt struck. We saw arcing inside the TV housing (tube TV...this was about 15-20 years ago) and if my memory is correct, saw how the charge raced across the wall frying everything in its path! It even got to the washer and dryer we later found out. Quite a thing!
If the strike didn't let too much magic smoke out of the amp, it should be salvageable.
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