I have not had a fuse blow ever in a modern piece of high-end audio gear. I conclude the need for fuses is overblown. One should simply replace the fuse and fuse holder with a nice silver conductor. The SQ should improve dramatically. Just saying...
Fuses fuses fuses
Ok, this is about fuses
1- a standard Bussman fuse is UL approved. Are any "high end" fuses UL approved?
2- do any component manufacturers supply their gear with any of the usual suspects of high end fuses as opposed to a standard Bussman?
3- let's say fuses do make a difference. Given incoming power is AC, why could fuses be directional?
Not meaning to light any fires here-
thanks in advance
1- a standard Bussman fuse is UL approved. Are any "high end" fuses UL approved?
2- do any component manufacturers supply their gear with any of the usual suspects of high end fuses as opposed to a standard Bussman?
3- let's say fuses do make a difference. Given incoming power is AC, why could fuses be directional?
Not meaning to light any fires here-
thanks in advance
244 responses Add your response
If it weren’t for threads like fuse threads neither side would have much to debate. Sometimes it’s good to release all that pent up emotion. 😀 Long live fuse threads and all the other threads that threaten complacent and contended audiophiles. As I keep saying if you really want to see some fireworks just wait’ll ya get a load of some tweaks that are really controversial. Then you’ll see the fur fly! Fuses threads like this one have been around like forever, at least 15 years. Get used to it. If ya can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. made the scene day to day week to week hour to hour the river is deep and wide break on through to the other side hey, hey, hey, hey! |
I'll vote to leave it up. Even though the thread is more concise than some other fuse-related threads that have appeared in the past (for example the "Fuses that Matter" thread that began in 2012 went on for 17 pages), arguments and rebuttals have been stated pretty thoroughly on both sides of the directionality issue. Taking it down would just increase the likelihood of a similar thread appearing in the future, with the usual protagonists then having to re-compose the same arguments. Regards, -- Al |
zavato OP802 posts07-26-2017 9:51amSo, who thinks I should delete this thread? +1 shut it down, as it’s in the "Technical Forum" and there nothing technical being said for why they would be giving better sound or sound different when reversed. It need to be in the Misc Audio forum where anything can be said. Cheers George |
George, Pathological skepticism, which we see rear its ugly head from time to time, especially on this particular fuse thread, but also many others, was addressed thoroughly in Zen and the Art of Debunkery. Perhaps you missed it. The author wrote, "Skepticism is an integral part of the scientific method, professional debunkers — often called ‘kneejerk skeptics’ — tend to be skeptics in name only, and to speak with little or no authority on the subject matter of which they are so passionately skeptical.” Sound familiar? It should. I can certainly understand why those who were trapped in the paradigms of the 80s and 90s got left behind the real audiophile journey. Not the fake audiophile journey that most people, like yourself, apparently, are familiar with and accept as real. One reason I employ the subtitle, Advanced Audio Concepts, for my company (Machina Dynamica) is the recognition that many audiophiles, for whatever reason, view anything that is outside or beyond their ken or experience as foreign or alien. "Unexplained" as you put it. One assumes you guys down in the remote islands in the Pacific don’t get a lot of the memos the rest of us get. That might explain your confusion and anger. An audio device or tweak only needs to be sufficiently advanced to be labeled magic or BS. Do you believe cameras steal your soul? From introduction to Zen and the Art of Debunkery: "Seeing with humility, curiosity and fresh eyes was once the main point of science. But today it is often a different story. As the scientific enterprise has been bent toward exploitation, institutionalization, hyperspecialization and new orthodoxy, it has increasingly preoccupied itself with disconnected facts in a psychological, social and ecological vacuum. So disconnected has official science become from the greater scheme of things, that it tends to deny or disregard entire domains of reality and to satisfy itself with reducing all of life and consciousness to a dead physics. In forgetting that all knowledge is provisional and subject to new discovery, mainstream science seems to be treading the weary path of the ossified religions it presumed to replace. Where free, dispassionate inquiry once reigned, emotions now run high in the defense of a fundamentalized “Scientific Truth.” As anomalies mount up beneath a sea of denial, defenders of the Faith and the Kingdom cling with increasing self-righteousness to the hull of a leaking paradigm. Faced with provocative evidence of things undreamt of in their philosophy, many otherwise mature scientists revert to a kind of reactive infantilism characterized by blind faith in the absoluteness of the familiar." An ordinary man has no means of deliverance! geoff kait machina dynamica advanced audio concepts |
georgehifi Geoffkait: I have a lot more engineering science under my belt than you two guys put together. You directed this statement at Almarg and Ralph!!!!! you really are certifiable. You’ve also been laughed off many other technical forums by even higher technical authorities than them, for your unexplained findings, you really do think you are the new "Audio Messiah"?? We can only live in hope the same happens here. I think you probably misunderstood. It was I who did the laughing. Like I laugh at you, Georgie. My unexplained findings? Are you high, Georgie? |
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I have a lot more engineering science under my belt than you two guys put together. You directed this statement at Almarg and Ralph!!!!! you really are certifiable. You've also been laughed off many other technical forums by even higher technical authorities than them, for your unexplained findings, you really do think you are the new "Audio Messiah"?? We can only live in hope the same happens here. Cheers George |
Geez, AL, you still trying to snow us with that, "we’re electronics and digital designers so we must be right" argument? You guys are too much. That’s the most obvious illogical argument there is - ye olde Appeal to Authority. Besides, if anyone has the credentials to win such an appeal to authority for fuse directionality it’s me! I have a lot more engineering science under my belt than you two guys put together. It’s not really an electronics or digital design issue. It's a metal crystal me physical science issue. What did I take? Thermodynamics, statistical thermodynamics, strength of materials, nuclear physics, indeterminate structures. You know, things of that nature. So please don’t try to snow us with your credentials. In fact, my undergraduate thesis involved the atomic physics of highly magnetized metal crystal. OK, you can guys can retire to your Barco Loungers. |
It is a fact that jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet without a parachute is unlikely to have a happy ending, at least assuming that a very large net is not set up on the ground. To most of those having an extensive background in electronic design the idea that a fuse would be inherently directional seems about as probable as the likelihood of such a jumper being in condition to celebrate with a beer following the experience. Especially when a person having extensive background in electronic design (Ralph) has in this and other threads provided specific experimental evidence supporting an alternative explanation. And especially when another such person (me) has pointed out that a half dozen or so variables that are unrelated to the internal characteristics of a fuse are also being changed when its direction is reversed. And especially when the phenomenon is alleged to consistently occur regardless of the design and the function of the component that is involved, and regardless of whether the component has well regulated internal DC voltages or internal voltages that are completely unregulated. The point to citing these things is not to deny anyone any pleasure. It is to dispel the promulgation of what appear to many of us to be myths and misconceptions, and to foster what appears to many of us, rightly or wrongly, to be a better understanding of the reported phenomena. Regards, -- Al |
gdnrbob, I discovered that by going to "edit" on my iMac, the menu pull down has emojis and other symbols at the bottom. Clicking on that brings up the emojis available and all you have to do is scroll down the one you like and click on it and it should appear right next to your text. All the best, Nonoise |
To think we're up against a knee-jerk reaction similar to repressed sexuality disguised as something else (audio appreciation). I can see where the angst comes from. Creatures of habit. Creatures from the Id. Well, I welcome their hammers 🔨🔨🔨. Swing away boys, swing away. And now I'll simply enjoy what my efforts have wrought, now knowing the audio prudes purpose: to deny me my pleasure. All the best, Nonoise |
Teo, why pick me to become unhinged on? I don’t get it. If you want to get into some weird pseudo philosophical argument with me you’re barking up the wrong tree. Fortunately the world is not as complex, unfathomable, opaque, impenetrable, mysterious, theoretical or uncertain as you portray it to be. I was not picking on you geoff. I was addressing what passes for logic function in most people. I was addressing those who read and post in the thread. The moment we wander into uncharted territory for ourselves or for the general knowledge base, we have to consider the reform of mind over the reform of others or data. Anything that equals our limits automatically equals our intellectual and musing limits. That we are in it up to our eyeballs and above our nose, so we’ve lost the ability to intellectually breathe. No headroom and no ability to intellectually parallax for the finding of answers. The whole Buddhist ’you can’t put tea into a cup that is already full’ scenario. That answers in a given intellectual quandary that persists do not lie in the harder use of intellectual hammers or the moving of the given hammer to another target. Getting past limits in knowing is an act of purposely wandering into the emotionally uncomfortable, and into reform and change of mind and wiring. And another 1000 pages of similar text. But one can avoid the text and simply get down to being wrong or being not hard headed and risking oneself and look for the new that one does not already know. Stepping out of the intellectual comfort zone. That stagnation in what you know is death and change in what you know -- is life itself. Our emotional origins -it being the carrier and filter in our logic function- makes us move in opposite directions as the logic would dictate..if it was viewed in clarity. It was a conversational foil game, nothing more. Simple things, like: the harder the problem to solve, the more fundamental the mistake in the formulation of the question. So we get to this question of fuses and in a scenario that is now proven to involve our reproductive functions, in cranial connectivity (music is processed in the same area of our brain as reproductive functions-sex, etc). Which means it is the most controlled area of ’mind’ we can attempt to intellectually crack or analyze. Heated, limited, circular, emotionally fired and fused. emotions underwrite and control every motion and thought emergence in the area of sex and we find this also deals with..music. Intellectual discussion in this area? Good luck with that, especially since it involves written text on the internet, where 90% of what we read is emotionally colored by us - and not the writer. If we are emotional on the subject, which we are, we inflect our emotions into their text, so the anger is mostly a mirror, not a reality. Be aware. Since we all poses different levels of awareness and intellect, emotional involvement and so on, we run the gamut from those who explore and seek to know, to those who use the same angry hammer, over and over again, on everything. And those hammer types are generally not even aware they are using a hammer enabled by their limits. The whole point of the discussion is to help raise them as well. But it can be pretty difficult to like them when they are hitting you with a hammer and attempting to cut you to ribbons if you get too close to their limits - which they hold onto for dear life. It’s a thankless and debilitating challenge. (Everyone has limits, it’s not an exclusive condition) Smacking people’s internal hornet nests is not a good way to be well respected, but it is an important and humane function. Ie, I don’t think you (and many others) spend so much time on these forums, just so you can feel you are right. It’s something else. It’s this other thing. People can get very circular in their logic and limit new thinking. Happens all the time, every day, part and parcel of why the world tends to go to crap when it is stressed. |
nonoise It seems no matter what is posted is simply overlooked so as to fit one’s narrative. >>>>>Actually, I don’t think one need look any further than the simple fact that the wire in the fuse is a metal alloy that’s designed to melt at a certain temperature that’s determined according to where the fuse is to be used. So all the highly technical terminology like high rupturing or whatever is irrelevant. One trusts the fuse employs high conductivity end caps and proper solder for attaching the (high conductivity) wire. Plus whatever else one deems necessary. See below paragraph. What is probably not obvious is the fuse is just sitting there, vulnerable to magnetic fields, electromagnetic waves and vibration. That’s really where the aftermarket fuses have come into their own and why they surpass stock fuses, all stock fuses, in sonic performance. Regardless of how one tries to pump up stick fuses with colorful language. Glass is not completely taboo either as seen in the Audio Magic Beeswax fuse, which uses a stock glass fuse upon which to construct the audiophile Beeswax fuse. It doesn’t require a degree in rocket science to appreciate why aftermarket fuses are superior to the run of the mill stock fuses. That’s why we see vibration control fluids, ceramic bodies, Graphene and other innovations in fuses. Fuses, even fancy fuses, are still vulnerable to magnetic fields but I guess that’s a story for another day. |
georgehifi "And this thread is only about fuses." If it were "just " about fuses, this thread wouldn’t even have to go over a few intelligent technical posts. This is more about some here who want to make out that $$$ fuses have some hidden magic (voodoo) to be found within, with an answer to the holy grail of great audio sound, nothing more, nothing less. Cheers George But, Georgie old bean, I haven’t seen an intelligent technical post from you here. I have seen intelligent technical posts from others. What’s up with all the angst and denial? One supposes it’s possible you simply can’t follow logical technical arguments. |
cerberus79 Has the purpose of a fuse been lost ? How it is designed to work ? By design there is no directionality in a fuse. it is simply designed to open in an overcurrent situation. If it was directional in relation to the current passing through it would be a diode. You have to admit there is some amount of irony in the fact (oops, there’s that word again!) that the HiFi Tuning fuses come with the diode symbol on them. Obviously fuses are not really acting like diodes in the sense they work only in one direction, it’s just to remind the user that the fuse sound better one way than the other. Besides we already know all wire is directional, not by design but by necessary process of manufacturer. Metal crystal like copper is not inherently directional physically or electrically, only when it’s drawn into wire. Make sense? You might ask, Has the purpose of an amplifier been lost? How is it deigned to work? Shouldn't all amplifiers sound the same? |
It seems no matter what is posted is simply overlooked so as to fit one's narrative. High rupturing fuses are not only better made but better in their application in audio gear and therein lies the rub. Google it. Why is it that every other part of audio can be improved but not the fuse? Yes, it's overpriced but what isn't? The same arguments have been used for cables and whatnot. Gone are the days of cheap glass tubes with cheap wire and end caps. Get over it. All the best, Nonoise |
And this thread is only about fuses. If it were "just " about fuses, this thread wouldn’t even have to go over a few intelligent technical posts. This is more about some here who want to make out that $$$ fuses have some hidden magic (voodoo) to be found within, with an answer to the holy grail of great audio sound, nothing more, nothing less. Cheers George |
Note to self: all of this rumpus points out and highlights the fact (see, there’s a fact!) that there is a HUGE chasm between the locals and the other audiophiles living contentedly in the 1990s and the advanced audiophiles who haven’t given up. And this thread is only about fuses. Try to imagine the angst and anger when the threads turn to something a little more, shall we say, devisive? You know. But this is not an isolated case, it happens on all audio forums. Live and let die. |
georgehifi georgehifi Can you give some other technical forums you visit so we can see what they think of you there also? Cheers George Don’t worry Geoff, all I had to do was Google "Geoff Kait audio" and wow, you really get a new one ripped on many forums, even Stereophile which is usually a fairly calm forum. >>>Huh? Whoa! Hey, talk to yourself much, George? Tsk, tsk! |
georgehifi Don't worry Geoff, all I had to do was Google "Geoff Kait audio" and wow, you really get a new one ripped on many forums, even Stereophile which is usually a fairly calm forum. Cheers George |
There are no facts, only interpretations., or There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths. -- Friedrich Nietzsche Fact is an enlightenment "folk concept" that doesn't actually exist. --Alasdair Macintyre Lots of philosophers would take issue that they are idiots. But then, this is supposed to be a discussion of fuses with one side "factually" hearing a difference and the other side denying what they're lying ears are hearing. What good have facts been in this thread? All the best, Nonoise |
Teo, why pick me to become unhinged on? I don’t get it. If you want to get into some weird pseudo philosophical argument with me you’re barking up the wrong tree. Fortunately the world is not as complex, unfathomable, opaque, impenetrable, mysterious, theoretical or uncertain as you portray it to be. |
Thank you for putting the word belief in there. Truths and facts exist for engineers and engineers alone. Well, for them and the religious, anyway. No scientist would ever use facts, they have only theories. Go ahead, ask someone with a doctorate in any of the fields of physics, whether there are any laws and facts in science. You will get a strong no from all of them. If you get a yes, then be assured, you are talking with an extreme minority. If you talk with a university professor in the realm of physics, you will also find out that they don’t teach facts or laws, they teach theory, and theory alone. For all the right reasons. When talking to the average person they might go for facts and laws, but when dealing with the new or exploring the new, everything reverts to the theory aspect. When you start to play with the edges of proof and conceptual aspects, like with this subject of fuses and whatnot, things get complex and facts and laws have a long history of getting in the way (when we play in the rarefied reaches of the known). Thus, they revert to theory, which is what they really are. I’m trying to make it abundantly clear that only theories exist, and there are no facts and laws. And that -- is the underlying force behind reason and exploration in science. It is absolutely critical that exploration go forward under such a mindset, a mindset that is not kneecapped by facts and laws before it even takes a step. All of science in it’s exploration agrees with this, even if you rarely hear them say it. |
teo_audio The underpinning is that a ’fact’ is a name, a moniker, a logic misnomer... for a highly predicable theory. But it remains theory. The use of the word ’law’ in science is also an attempt to put social and cultural group pressure on individuals to conform or be punished by the group. At least this is part of the traditional meaning of the use of the word law. Thus we can see the the word law remains as being in the world of human social/cultural structure and in the supposed world of logic, has zero place in the world of science. So we can have the word law in the world of science, if we are looking to prosecute people and possibly kill, ostracize or beat them to death, in public, for ’violating’ laws. Which, according to the tenants of science, is patently absurd and against the very fabric of science and what it is supposed to stand for. But the word works very well in religion. Is science with laws -- a form of dogmatism? > Let me guess. You’re an English major? A Drama major? A Religion major? But seriously, it is not really too difficult to demonstrate to anyone that the world is flat, that the speed of light in constant in the universe, or that there are black holes in the center of most galaxies, including ours. Of course if one’s mind is closed it makes it more difficult. It is also fairly easy to show that there was (almost certainly) a Big Bang, that the universe is around 14 billion years old, that the universe is expanding, that there are gravity waves from colliding black holes, There are such things as truths and facts in science. Why pretend there aren’t. Are you trying to be Juror #10? "You can’t prove it!" Man discovers or uncovers reality of the world and universe around him by observing, theorizing, experimenting, by mathematical or experimental proof and/or by weighing the preponderance of evidence. And by establishing Laws and theories that he believes govern phyically reality. Some theories like atomic theory is evolutionary in the sense it is ever getting more complete and more complex. |
nonoise I did a quick google search to see if places other than the USA use a different descriptor than "high breaking capacity" in their fuses. Apparently there’s also "high rupturing capacity". Two different types of fuses. HRC fuses are built primarily with ceramic bodies, silver plated end caps, silver internal wire and are filled with different types of powder to prevent arcing when the wire melts on one end inside the fuse. It’s also stated to be a calibrated conductor. Sound familiar? The stated advantages are that they do not deteriorate with age, they clear high and low fault currents and have consistent performance. Could it be that someone just applied the better material aspects of fuse design in HRC fuses and applied them to "normal" audio fuses with the corresponding markup our hobby enjoins? >>>>Maybe, but how did they get the 99% pure silver gold impregnated wire inside the ceramic body? from highend electronics dot com, "The latest development of HiFi-Tuning in Berlin is the unplated "Supreme" fuse. Even better than the predecessor "SilverStar"! The performance exceeded all expectations and the Supreme fuses became a Top Seller! 99% Silver + 1% Gold = 100% Sound Caps and burn wire is made from a Silver/Gold alloy, even the solder (Mundorf) is Gold/Silver, and of course, like all HiFi-Tuning fuses, the "Supremes" are deep cryo treated! HiFi-Tuning Supreme Fuses are availble in many variants - small (5x20mm), large (6.3x32mm), fast blow (F) and slow blow (T) and the price is $59.95 for the small Supreme and $89.95 for the large Supreme." This just in, from Parts Connection, "HiFi-Tuning of Berlin-Germany has released a new highest performing version of their industry-leading fuses called "Supreme". The new line of Supreme fuses is handmade, tip-to-tip of 99% Silver combined with 1% 24k Gold, similar to the material used in the Mundorf Supreme Silver/Gold Capacitors. Mundorf also developed for HiFi-Tuning a special Silver/Gold solder for use in the Supreme fuses. HiFi-Tuning's 99% Silver + 1% Gold melt wire, used exclusively in the Supreme fuses, is resonance-optimized to control vibration. Technical: To understand the advantage of the 99% Silver + 1% Gold combination, think about silver's crystalline structure. The drawing process for silver (or copper) wire causes micro cracks in the surface of the wire. The cooling process also results in imperfect crystal grid structures. Both of these "deformities," relative to the ideal of a perfect conductor, result in surface distortion when current flows through the wire. The addition of 24K gold fills the micro cracks and the empty spaces between the crystal boundaries to improve transmission properties, while also inhibiting the surface oxidation and tarnishing that will occur over time otherwise." cheers, Geoff at Machina Dynamica |
I did a quick google search to see if places other than the USA use a different descriptor than "high breaking capacity" in their fuses. Apparently there’s also "high rupturing capacity". Two different types of fuses. HRC fuses are built primarily with ceramic bodies, silver plated end caps, silver internal wire and are filled with different types of powder to prevent arcing when the wire melts on one end inside the fuse. It’s also stated to be a calibrated conductor. Sound familiar? The stated advantages are that they do not deteriorate with age, they clear high and low fault currents and have consistent performance. Could it be that someone just applied the better material aspects of fuse design in HRC fuses and applied them to "normal" audio fuses with the corresponding markup our hobby enjoins? As a novice, I’m just asking. All the best, Nonoise |
The designer, and the U. S. distributor of, the Hi-Fi Tuning Fuse have confirmed one "fact"---that neither knows what "high breaking capacity" in terms of fuses means. That is a rather basic fuse design element, so what else don't they know about fuses? The Little Fuse engineers know what it means, and include that consideration in the design of their products. It's not a proprietary secret, it's a well-understood element in electrical engineering. Well-understood, that is, by experts in the field, of which the Hi-Fi Tuning Fuse people are obviously not. |