When I was young(er) my brother, a former NASA aerospace engineer who went into audio equipment repair, showed me how to build a current-limiting light bulb gadget. It’s worked for me for many decades (arithmetic is pretty simple,, VA=W so a 100W light bulb will pull a steady-state 0.85A on a 120 VAC circuit and blow if inrush current exceeds… I forget it’s been so long) but it’s only been the past ten or so years I’ve started using a variac upon advice of many in the field. Seems like a reasonable precaution given the time/money invested, I just don’t know how necessary it is, really.