Hi again Dan and all,
By now we've probably scared him away. (;->) Actually this isn't an argument or a war of the tech heads, it's a compilation of information so when you put together all we've said all bases are covered.
Just to comment on a couple of valid points, first of all those MOVs like all components come from the same factory, get branded in a sorting house, are distributed wholesale and stuck in all sorts of things regardless of brand. Bottom line is while there may be quality in a brand (the final product) the base parts are all the same.
Another valid point is those combo strips could possibly transfer RF, line noise, or whatever by proximity coupling. I doubt that's the problem here, there are two possibilities, line noise being passed through or generated by the surge protector itself. The only way to find out is like I said, remove the device and plug in direct to the same outlet. Sorry I forgot to mention that little detail before, another outlet even in the same room may not be on the same branch circuit and we've gone down that process of elimination road many times before. Maybe that's why I didn't mention it. (;->)
I remember Power Washer or the name at least but there are many brands of strips having both surge protection and RF filtering. Those combo strips having protection and filtering for telco lines included simply consolidate components into a single unit and both are used for computing devices. Since such devices generate RF hash you really don't want it backing up into the lines and interfering with other devices on the line or radiating and interfering with wireless devices like scanners. Sound familiar?
Tell your pop "thank you" for the above reason and while you're at it tell him surge suppression is fine but there's no reason to filter the mains serving audio equipment unless there's a pesky CBer in the neighborhood and in that case... oh never mind.
A power conditioner is simply a UPS without battery backup. All it does is change the AC mains current to low voltage DC and back to AC again which completely isolates the load from the line as if it were powered by it's own alternator. (Generators produce DC.) Put a battery across the DC and you have a UPS. The mains input can be anything from 90 to 140 volts (approximate) while the output is a constant 120 volts making it the compact solid state equivalent of a heavy, bulky and noisy constant voltage transformer. Yeah, the darn things hum like they're full of bees.
Again there's no reason to use one on audio equipment so at the risk of sounding like an unintended insult some audiophiles are audiophools. Oxygen free copper wire? Never heard of it but I heard of Monster and find their deceptive marketing claims somewhat amusing.
Hey, print out this post for him with this paragraph deleted and when the urge to kill me subsides he just may give you that power conditioner too for your computer which is it's intended use in the first place. (;->)