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Direction of aftermarket fuses (only for believers!)

It is with reluctance that I start another thread on this topic with the ONLY GOAL for believers to share their experience about aftermarket fuses.
To others: you can call us snobs, emperors w/o clothes,... etc but I hope you refrain posting just your opinion here. If you did not hear any difference, great, maybe there isn’t.

The main driver for this new post is that I am starting a project to mod my NAD M25 7 ch amp for my home theater. It has 19 fuses (2 per channel, 4 on the power supply board, 1 main AC) and I will try a mix of AMR Gold, SR Black and Audio Magic Platinum (anyway that is the plan, I may try out some other brands/models). As it is reasonably difficult to change them, esp the ones on each channel module that requires complete disassembly, I would like to know what the direction is for these models mentioned and of course, others who HAVE HEARD there is a difference please share your experience on any fuse model you have tried.

Fuses are IME directional:
Isoclean is one of the first to indicate the direction (2008/2009) on their fuses. Users of HiFi Tuning (when the awareness rose quite a bit amongst audiophiles) have mostly heard the difference.

As an IEEE engineer, I was highly skeptical of cabling decades ago (I like the speaker design of John Dunlavy but he said on many occasions that cables nor footers matter at all, WRONG!). Luckily, my curiosity proved me wrong as well. I see the same skepticism that I and many others had about the need for aftermarket cables many, many years ago now on fuses and esp on the direction on fuses.

Another example is the direction of capacitors (I do not mean electrolytic types). Even some manufacturers now and certainly many in the past did not believe it can make a difference sonically. Maybe some do but it takes time in the assembly to sort and put them in the right direction/order (esp as some of the cap manufacturers still do not indicate "polarity") so that maybe is one argument why this is not universally implemented.








jazzonthehudson
almarg's avatar
almarg
8,673 posts
 
Infection 5-12-2016
Geoff, the statement I quoted is from almarg.
Although you omitted the first part of my sentence that you quoted. The full sentence (see my post dated 4-28-2016 on page 1 of this thread) was:

Many of those who have extolled the virtues of the fuse upgrades that have been discussed in the other recent threads have expressed the opinion that the higher the resolution and the quality of the components that are involved, the greater the benefits fuse upgrades are likely to provide.
So I was citing the opinions of others, who are experienced with fuse upgrades, which I am not.

Also, I have pointed out in many prior threads on various topics that the sonic quality of a system, and its ability to resolve musical detail, do not necessarily go hand in hand with the ability of the system to resolve hardware differences, contrary to what many audiophiles seem to believe. Just to mention one example among countless others that could be cited, lower speaker impedance will tend to make a speaker more resolving of amplifier differences and speaker cable differences, while not necessarily resulting in the speaker being an intrinsically better sonic performer than one having higher impedance.

In this particular case, however, and despite the additional fact that I have often emphasized the considerably less than perfect correlation between price and performance in audio, I did feel that there was a substantial chance that the cited opinions could be applicable. As what was being considered was a relatively expensive upgrade of 19 fuses in an amplifier providing **seven** channels of fairly high powered amplification, but which cost just $2500 to $3000 ten years ago.

I hope that clarifies the thinking behind my comment that you quoted.

Regards,
-- Al

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 

nonoise
2,176 posts
05-12-2016 9:10pm
"Lots of Fuses reviewed here and some I haven’t heard of. Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of the ones not discussed here?
And, if so, how they compare?"

Excellent question. It would be an interesting undertaking (no pun intended) to compare say the top five contenders, HiFi Tuning, SR Black, Audio Magic Beeswax fuse, Audio Horizons, Isoclean. Maybe I missed one or two. Anyway, in order to evaluate the fuses properly so that the results are somewhat credible, each fuse would have to be broken in, then it’s correct direction determined. Thus for five fuses I estimate about what 6 months to a year? One assumes the evaluator would have to resign himself to listening to fuses break in for all that time. The only good news is that after all the fuses are broken in it should be an easy task to evaluate them.

Cheers

nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
Thanks Geoff but that does sound daunting. 

If anyone cares to look at my above post there's a link at the beginning of the first sentence that's partially obscured by the blue background. In it, is a short review on about 11 fuses and how they sound to the reviewer.


The fuse I'm curious about is the PADIS fuse. They are UL listed as well as having PSE and SEMKO certification. They're made in Germany and for one purpose only: audio. They also make fuses for another "audio" brand (looks like Furutech) and retail for about $25.
You can get these Padis fuses on ebay.

The price seems very reasonable and they don't garner the hype and ensuing controversy that other fused have endured and seem to meet and exceed all the criteria of the naysayers. Does anyone here have any experience with this brand?

All the best,
Nonoise
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
nonoise
2,177 posts
05-13-2016 2:34pm
"Thanks Geoff but that does sound daunting.

If anyone cares to look at my above post there’s a link at the beginning of the first sentence that’s partially obscured by the blue background. In it, is a short review on about 11 fuses and how they sound to the reviewer."

I would prefer if possible to get the full Monty report with at least 100 hrs of break in for each fuse. 18 hours on a break in device seems way not long enough. I maintain that you can’t tell if the deficiencies Eric reports are real or if they’re simply the result of insufficient break in. I would prefer the BREAK IN track on the XLO Test CD played on REPEAT for say two weeks. I also would have preferred to see at least the SR Red Fuse in the mix not to mention the Black Fuse. Also the Audio Magic Beeswax fuse or at least the AM Super Nano fuse. And the Isoclean fuse. If you want a super cost effective fuse just try flipping a LITTELFUSE fuse or ANY stock fuse and see if that works.

Addendum: at least Eric tried and for that he is to be commended. I also happen to agree with Eric that the diode symbol on the HiFi Tuning fuses is not intended to show the correct direction the fuse is to be inserted, only to provide cosmetic asymmetry to the fuse so you don’t lose track of it’s direction when flipping it.

Cheers

nonoise's avatar
nonoise
4,382 posts
 
Thanks Geoff. Your mention of the XLO Breakin Test CD reminded me that I need to get one of those for regular maintenance. Audio Advisor and Music Direct both have the Ayre Test CD so I think I'll give them a look.

All the best,
Nonoise
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