Fuses fuses fuses

Geoff, regarding your question just above, in one of my posts here yesterday I had quoted the following statement I made in an earlier fuse-related discussion:

... all or nearly all of the directional differences in resistance were vastly smaller than 5%, with the exception of the "standard glass fuse."

However, note that what the paper says is "the difference is in the range of 5%," not "generally around 5%."   Differences that are "vastly smaller than 5%" are WITHin the range of 5%. So their statement is arguably accurate, although highly misleading.

Regards,
-- Al
 

atmasphere
Not to make too fine a point of it, but has anyone here noticed that I have confirmed by measurement that if you place the fuse in backwards that you may indeed hear a difference?

>>>Let me help you out. What we are actually saying is that not only is there a difference between one way and the other but that it’s PREDICTABLE which way will sound better than the other - when you control the manufacturing process. There is no backwards or forwards! Didn’t you read the Audioquest paper? That’s why we say fuses are directional. That’s why we say ALL WIRE is directional. It’s because of the wire manufacturing process that the wire becomes "directional." So, it’s not just that it SOUNDS DIFFERENT, it SOUNDS BETTER one way than the other. and it's predictable if you control the process. That’s the whole point. We don’t even have to get into the atomic physics of why that’s true. Does that help?

Now, cable manufacturers who mark their cables with arrows obviously control the manufacturing process. Not so sure fuse manufacturers control the process of fuse manufacture, which is not really a problem since the user can simply try any fuse both ways and pick the direction that sounds best. And for cables and interconnects that aren’t marked with arrows then obviously the user should try both directions and see which one is best.

What possible financial motive would Audioquest have in promoting cable and wire directionality?

Cables can be built in such a way that they can be directional. The classic from of this is of course an interconnect with XLR terminations. It can only be plugged in one way.

But RCA cables can be built so that the shield is only tied at one end. Often this type of cable can express a directionality depending on how well the equipment in the system is grounded.

So there is a very practical reason for Audioquest to promote such a thing; hard to say if its financial but that is your speculation not mine.

Now let's entertain for a moment that raw wire and fuses are directional. Let's further say that you put them all in the same orientation in the equipment. The result would be high distortion, as the wire and fuse(s) would act like a diode, and thus rectify the audio signal. This is one way in which fuzzboxes (an electric guitar effect pedal) operate.  Fuzzboxes are called that because of the sort of distortion they make.

As you can see, in the right hands a fuzzbox can really be a nice effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgqVHQITciY

But it does not work for hifi even though it sounds cool on a guitar. Its exactly the opposite of hifi: Distortion!

Now let's instead put all the wire and fuses in such a way that they are not all creating one series diode. In this case, the signal will still get rectified, only in a variety of different ways. This too will cause distortion.

Its pretty clear that most audiophiles would like to (and do) avoid that phenomena. To that end, non-directional wire and fuses should be sought out!  If you have the pesky kind that is directional, count on it to add distortion to whatever signal is flowing through it.

 

What I haven't learned Geoff is why does a "simple" AC fuse sell for 100.00? Yes, I have listened to SR red and black, oh there are differences for sure but for the money there are more substantive ways to spend in my estimation. I also experimented with a gold fuse years back in may Berning's amp, it was a gift from a fellow Berning owner, marginal improvement, I think. It retailed for 40.00. Haven't personally witnessed the directional cable phenomena but did experiment years back, didn't hear differences, Stereovox, Cardas, Harmonic Tech and I'm sure a few others, it's been a while. Reversing fuses? I'll pass, I have to draw the line somewhere otherwise I'd have too little time to do what drew me to this place to begin with. Agree concerning cryogenic treatment on wires AND tubes. So you see we don't disagree on everything. 

Thanks Al and Ralph for your explanations and for keeping it real. 

Atmosphere, if you’re pretending to be dense you’re doing an excellent job. Don’t you get it, we’ve already eliminated all of your cable directionality causes. It's the wire itself. Nobody said there aren't other issues like shielding. As the Audioquest dude said you have to be aware of al of them and deal with them, CONTROL them, accordingly. Capish?