Hi All
Just a timely reminder to unplug year precious gear is there is a threat of lightning nearby.
Last time I unplugged for a lightning storm nothing happened, except my CDS II decided to die a quiet death and not work anymore. Thankfully Naim fixed it and it lives again. Cost me a fair bit though.
Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice as they say.
Maybe, though one wonders how much a repair would have cost for a CDP which was connected to a socket that was blown out of the wall by a lightning strike.
Many years ago…the first time I met a person who is now a long-standing friend of mine-he came around to listen to my DBL 6-pack. I was living at the top of a weather-exposed hill at the time. During the listening session there was a lightening strike directly to the house, that literally blew the wall receptacles out of the wall…and destroyed a computer, a modem and a TV at the time. Fortunately, I had the audio on a dedicated outlet, and it was spared. But with a slightly different change of fortune, I could have lost 6x135, supercap, Snaxo, 52/supercap/Nat01 in one swoop.
A few years later, the same active system blew one 135 and its powered driver (fortunately just the tweeter) during a lightening storm.
Probably the single biggest risk was the roof-mounted G17 FM antenna.
Weather-related damage is real and not anectdotal.
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Lightening ? 
I’ve been in one house, and just outside another when they were hit by lightning. Mixed fortunes, but we unplug everything we care about when it’s approaching.
A friend in Sweden lost everything, even appliances that were unplugged, when receiving a large direct hit. Induction?
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All very well to unplug when you’re at home - but what about those out at work all day? Fortunately it didn’t happen many times when my wife and I were working, but there were a few times when we were anxious as to what we might find on our return.
We’re retired now, but what do you working folk do? Just hope for the best as we did, or do you closely monitor weather forecasts and unplug as a precautionary measure before leaving for work?
If lightning is forecast, or if I can see it approaching on real time lightning monitors available online, I would unplug. Our house is quite exposed, so more prone to strikes than most. You’ll never eliminate all the risk, but I think we all have to make a judgment call on when it’s appropriate.
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I was woken by (unforecast) thunder and rain at about 1am today. Considered going downstairs and unplugging but had a look on a live lightning tracker and the storm had almost completely passed so didn’t bother. A calculated risk, as is more or less everything we do in life.
Mark
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Getting hold of a plug to pull it from a socket during an electrical storm is itself a considerable risk - perhaps not a calculated one at 1am!
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Those lightning trackers apps are a godsend!!
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Just the place to get out of the wind during a storm 
By the time you climb that with local weather you could have had four seasons.
That’s how tourist expert climbers get caught out. 
Once, when I lived in France, I was enjoying Master & Commander at full volume on a Naim surround system - no need to worry about neighbours.
The on-screen storm action arrived at a lull only for me to realise there was, outside, a full-scale orage bending the doors and windows inward.
Emergency measures ensued.
I greatly enjoyed the heavy rain, thunder and lightning we got last night - went out to get soaked in it. Beautiful. Hopefully signals the last of the heatwave.
But I unplugged the stereo beforehand. Wet, but canny…
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Opened another 5th of whisky?
Or said, “F it” and queued up “Night on Bald Mountain.”
I always unplug. Having seen what a lightning strike can do it’s mandatory for me. The issue is which fuses will blow and/or which circuit breakers will trip when I start powering it up again.
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