Was it?
That’s Ugly… I can imagine that piece of gear is done for…
Yikes! Looks terrible and maybe impossible to repair?
Looks like an ND5XS. That’s the ground switch there next to the DIN socket and the shiny bolt to the right between DIN socket and switch is the PCB to chassis ground connection. Looks like a fair amount of current from the surge found a ground path !
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I had a similar incident about six or seven years ago. Lightning hit the overhead telephone lines about 300m from our house. The telephone line was pretty much vaporised for about a mile. As was a lot of kit in the house. Fortunately most of my Naim kit survived but there were a couple of bits that went pack to Naim for repair. On a more positive note the insurance company we’re fantastic (Hiscox) and got me to get all the damage valued and paid for everything within a couple of weeks, no questions or quibbles.
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Sat in the house of a school friend when expected storm started. Everything unplugged and lay on the floor. Watched in horror as lightning arced through a socket; hit the unplugged TV cable; set fire to a rug and destroyed the TV.
Since then I unplug everything as soon as I can see a storm tracking our way at speed. I also unplug at the box end. So that’s all audio; TV; Sky box and fibre broadband/router and all computers.
You can take my rug and cables but you’re not having the boxes they were attached to.
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That’s why it always makes me wince when people say they they start unplugging things when they hear or see lightning 
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I had forgotten: When I was a kid my parents not only turned things off and unplugged them when a storm was coming (distant rumbles of thunder), but warned us to keep away from electrical things, and keep away from the windows.
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We do not have overhead cables running here, but this is no guarantee I think.
What if instead of unplugging I switch the fuse for the hifi room off?
Unplugging is a bit difficult as the plugs are behind the rack.
When I hear the story of lighting coming out of the wall socket both won’t help I think.
Such strong lighting will shorten the fuse?
BBC weather app today said we’d be at risk from 7am to 3pm. As I’ve a DAC on loan at present pending the return of mine from Chord I have powered that down and unplugged it at both ends.
Frustratingly the same BBC has an option to play the forecast for your postcode. Played ours and it bore next to no relationship to what the app itself was saying.
As I’m sat here now we have had a few spots of rain whilst I was on my brisk 4m walk this morning and right now we have beautiful sunshine with a small breeze.
All the above was co-ordinated with keeping an eye on Lightning Maps. I haven’t seen a strike in most of Western Europe let alone the UK.
So, chose to not fully power down bar the DAC and all is well. Getting accurate info. is a PITA though.
That’s why I find the lightning app a good tool.
We had a forecast for lightning this morning so I knew unplugging might be on the cards at some point. The nearest strike must have been over 30 miles away as the app didn’t trigger so I’ve just gone about my business.
As for the BBC app, I find the met office one to be more accurate.
Long ago abandoned the Met Office app on iOS as absolutely useless. Find that Windy and Meteoblue are far better with the BBC generally being fine except for its tendency to predict extremes which never arrive.
Mike, have you tried Ventusky?
I deleted the Lightning app from my iPhone when I was investigating my phone’s poor battery life and found that the app running in the background had used 10% of total battery capacity in the last 24 hours, despite there being no lightning activity to report anywhere near the UK.
But I do know the power of a lightning strike. About 50 years ago my parent’s overhead electricity supply cable took a direct hit and this went to ground via their old country bungalow. It set fire to the thatch and the place was very badly damaged. My younger brother who was living at home at the time, while working on a farm a few miles away, came home to find the bungalow alight and fire engines all over the place. He was already stressed out because he had seen two of the cows he was getting in from a field for milking struck and killed by lightning just an hour before.
I’ve not. Just installed it now though. Thanks.
I tried the app but it looked unfinished to me. Website leaves something to be desired too but I use that when I’m out walking and there’s no battery drain.
About 15 years ago we lived in a cottage high in the Krušné hory mountains in the Czech Republic. Electric storms were a regular occurrence. One day we had an unusually big one. More than ever before, we could feel the energy in the atmosphere. There were no strikes particularly near the village but, at the height of the storm, our modem/router burst in to flames! The Logitech Touch that was plugged into the router never worked on wired Ethernet ever again but otherwise functioned normally. Our old Naim 32.5 and 82 were fine.
I am pretty sure that the router expired just from the charge in the air. There was no problem after the storm with either the electricity supply or the phone line.
Not really if there is a signing strike there is an EMP and even ground voltages can rise significantly for a moment. Current flows all over the place, and that is not including the EMP.
Most if not all new facilities, certainly in the uk, have mains surge protectors required in in the CU, so you would be protected from this simple mains surge from the unity wiring.
If you had an older installation without mains surge protecting then simply switching off at the trip or consumer unit could help. This protects you from a surge on the utility wiring coming into the property.
The only reasonably assured way to protect appliances is to unplug all connections including speakers and mains plugs, unless your building is designed to shield EMP. Some tall tower blocks have such protections. The chance of a hit to your house is sufficiently small you may think this is overly cautious and you have insurance of the worst happens? It’s a choice. As I say new installation in the UK since 2019 have to have lightning surge protectors (SPDs) installed in the CU (unless a risk assessment is undertaken that such a surge can do no damage or loss of life) it might be worth retro fitting them for piece of mind, at least that protects from mains surges coming into the property.
The British standard also gives some protection to mains induced EMP, if the mains wiring between main distribution board (CU) and sub distribution board is longer than 10m, then additional SPDs are installed on the sub distribution board.
But remember if you have 5 to 10 metres of speaker cable, I would defo unplug these. There will be no protection on the amp power output.
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The very high current in a lightning strike is easily enough to arc across the contacts of any switch. It is not a substitute for unplugging
wall sockets.
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Lightening strikes and even near misses are a genuine risk. I have had two lightening related incidents…
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The most severe was when a lightning bolt directly struck one distribution unit that was mounted on an outside wall. This actually blew some of the sockets out of the wall, melted TV’s, computers ets.
This strike happened during a listening session with my DBL/Sixpack, which fortunately was on a completely separate dedicated breaker box. Otherwise I would have lost 6x135, all 6 DBL drivers, NAT01, CDS, CDSPS, 52/SC all in one swoop. -
The next incident happenened when I was not listening to the system, but it was all powered up at the time. One 135 fried and took out the driver it was connected to; fortunately one of the $100 tweeters instead of the $1000 woofers. But it could easily have taken out multiple 135s and their associated drivers.
A roof mounted G17 antenna is also an excellent lightening rod. During a storm, do not forget to unplug the coax antenna input to the tuner.
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