I've used cheap surge protectors only for the fact that I don't have enough outlets. When I heard that a friend blew out all his home theater devices with a lightning strike, I figured I should invest in a good one. The ones I already had are 6-8 outlets, but not all plugs are the same. Sometimes a plug will take two spots instead of one for some proprietary design. Since Amazon has everything, I searched and found the Belkin Surge Protector. Now I am a bit impressed with a "Surge Protector", of all things.
Basically it is one strong unit that has twelve (12) outlets. Eight (8) of these are flexible/rotating for those odd-ball plugs. On one Belkin, I was able to connect my Television, Receiver, DVD players (2), Satellite Television box, multiple CD Player/Changer, a Light fixture, a Satellite Speaker Transmitter, and two Sub-woofers. The eight (8) foot cord is more than long enough as my electrical socket is very close. I don't have a phone jack in my living room, so I didn't need that (it is a good idea), but the 1-in, 1-out coaxial-cable protection makes me feel very good about protection.
It says that it has 4,320 Joules of Surge Protection and I have no idea what that means, but when combined with a $300,000 "Connected Equipment Warranty", I guess I don't need to. It would be curious to see if it failed and if Belkin would actually pay up on a faulty surge protector, but it's a very nice warranty. It has been on for four days now and it is not even warm. For the price, Belkin gave me a lot of piece of mind.
Now I think I'll buy another for my PC set-up. That is an entirely different issue!