As a home theater salesman, I would say that he was probably makin a big commision off that sale. However as a salesman who doesn't work off commision I tell that in most cases you should look to get some kind of power protection. However you should make sure that it has a preferably an ac line, audio and video fitler so that i will help to fitler all the electricial interference in the power lines which results in a cleaner sound and video. In the case of the monster power 2500 that you were talking about just make sure that it is a clean power protection. As long as it has that you would be fine. However you don't have to buy one of these but if you go to a store and see the display of what these things do you would by one.