Many people forget their primary school science. They
assume destructive transients enter as if ocean waves.
Crashing and damaging only that one location. Reality: it is
electricity. Electricity first flows through everything in
the circuit. Only then does something (or many things) in
that circuit fail. The poster 'feels' that the pre-amp will
stop or block what 3 miles of sky could not? How silly.

Sacrificial protection is the classic myth. One more
reason why. It would take milliseconds or longer for the
pre-amp to become an open circuit. A destructive transient
does damage in microseconds. Even the fastest 'sacrificial'
protector - a fast blow fuse - takes tens of milliseconds to
blow. Where is protection provided by a pre-amp? Mythical
once we apply numbers.

"Bob S." wrote:
As others have stated, you probably won't need a preamp for signal
gain. However, I use a low gain preamp as lightning protection for
the tv's input circuitry. I figure it's better to replace a $20
preamp than to replace a $500 tv.
Bob