Fuses that matter.

Kijanki,

I hope for the benefit of the custom fuse owners that the makers of these care as much about making sure the fuses serve their primary function properly as a prerequisite to whatever specific they might do to make them "sound better", but there is little or nothing to indicate they do. That alone disqualifies fancy fuses to me. I'll seek to invest my money in power tweaks elsewhere thanks.

I would not use a fuse marketed exclusively under the premise of better sound for this reason even if someone gave them to me for free and I actually thought they might sound better.

05-31-12: Kijanki
We don't even know if 3A Hi-Fi fuse is not really 3.5 or 4A standard fuse since AFAIK there is no test or approval of any agency.

Furutech fuses have the following approvals: PSE, CE, UL

Isoclean fuses have the following approvals: UL, PSE, SA, and CE

bc

Hi Al (Rodman),

I think that your points are generally well taken, and I realize that they are backed up by a great deal of relevant experience.

The one point I would make in response, though, is along the lines of Kijanki's comment. It is often said that the power supply and the power source are in the signal path, and that is certainly true in a sense. However, as I'm sure you realize but others may not, the effects of power anomalies on what ultimately goes into the speakers (or at least those effects that are explainable based on generally recognized science) will be greatly reduced by filtering and smoothing that is provided in the power supply, by filtering that is (or at least should be) provided at or near all circuit points where the outputs of the power supply are used, by the power supply rejection ratio of the circuit stages that directly process the signal, and in many components by voltage regulator devices and circuits.

I think that a good indicator of the significance of the distinction between being directly in the signal path, and being indirectly/in a sense/sort of in the signal path, is that if this thread were about fuses that are in speakers, or fuses that are in amplifiers in series with their outputs, I suspect that it would have ended about 300 posts ago, with little or no controversy. I, and I suspect most technically-oriented fuse skeptics, would consider it highly surprising if there were NOT significant sonic differences between fuses in those applications.

Best regards,
-- Al

Bryon, thanks for the info. Both were pretty much the same as stock fuses, per your test, so I checked only Supremes and could not find any safety approval. There are better returns for my money in audio, as Mapman suggested, since I'm not "there" yet working currently on room acoustics. Also idea of investing in something designed to fail would make me feel bad. Hi-Fi fuses are not very common so this thread looks a little like support group:

"Hello, my name is Joe and I listen to fuses"
"Hi, Joe"

Kijanki wrote,

"We don't even know if 3A Hi-Fi fuse is not really 3.5 or 4A standard fuse since AFAIK there is no test or approval of any agency."

Judging from the 4 pages of technical data on the Hi Fi Tuning web site, including data for directionality and cryogenically treated fuses, chances are good that Hi Fi Tuning testing is at least as comprehensive as UL or other standards orgs.