fuses - the $39 ones or the 85 cent ones

Rodman99999...Most "live" music these days is electronicly amplified and delivered using loudspeakers. Even Opera, where the Diva may wear a mic. Classical chamber music and jazz may be the exception.

So it is not unreasonable to prefer one's own speakers.

Rodman99999..."acoustic jazz" you said. Exactly my point.
At nearby Tanglewood (BSO summer music site) the Osawa hall is a relatively small venue designed specifically for chamber music and the like, and is completely acoustic. But the main "shed", where Beethoven holds forth, is electronicly amplified. I only attend if I am offered free tickets because the concerts, which are broadcast on a good local FM station, sound lots better on my home system. Even on the Bose :-)

236 comments about fuses! Good grief!

I was curious about the theory that vibration applied to wires and/or electronics would generate some kind of signal. So...I put a high gain phono preamp into a closed box with a speaker system, and blasted it with very high volume sound... much higher than it would experience with a normal setup. What came out of the preamp was absolutely nothing. No measurable voltage and no audible signal.

Vibration is certainly bad news for turntables, for tube electronincs, and, at very high levels, for disc players and maybe tape decks. But otherwise I don't believe there is an effect.

Kirkus...OK. I will try your kind of experiment. The easiest way to do it would be to simply "slap the mic cable around" which goes from an actual mic to my Behringer DEQ2496 spectrum analyser. The analyser is very sensitive and will show sound levels below what is audible when I play my system. I will stuff the mic under a cushon so that the slaps won't be picked up acousticly.

And about the sand, another reason is to prevent violent destruction of the fuse body if it blows. Safety issue.

Magnetic "fuses". Where do these idea come from? I suppose the next step will be radioactive fuses. Even more mysterious, and therefore commanding even higher prices.

Theaudiotweak..."Tube" preamp you say. Perhaps you should be concerned about the effect of a magnet on the electron beams in your tubes.

At work, when testing a vidicon to calibrate it we found that the results varied depending on which way the device was pointed. (A vidicon is a vacuum tube imaging device, once used for TV). Turns out that the earth's magnetic field was deflecting the electron beam. Of course we all know what a speaker magnet does to a CRT. However, the good news is that, unlike transistors, tubes are not damaged by radiation.