It has actually been discussed on quite a few threads here and the best idea put forward and used by at least one amp manufacturer was to use a circuit breaker in place of the on/off switch and the fuse.
On/Off Switch
People spend a lot of effort to feed their audio system with clean power. Dedicated power lines, new wires from the electrical panel, special hospital grade or audio grade power outlets, expensive devices to do additional power filtering are just some of the things that are quite often done in this hobby. Then we buy expensive power cords, special audiophile fuses, and even replace the factory IEC inlets with better quality.
This is all good, and I understand that once you have a system with high enough resolution, the changes are audible. But how often do we open the cover of our equipment to discover that although we spend so much money on a special power cord, the wire (incidentally much thinner and cheaper than our special power cord) from the IEC goes all the way from the back to the front just to go through a cheap on/off switch and back to the rear or the middle of the chassis.
I just looked at partsconnexion, hificollective, vhaudio, and a few other web sites that specialize in audiophile grade parts and could not find a nice solid audio grade on/off switch. Why is that? If a fuse makes a difference in the sound, and (according to some manufacturers) even the direction of the fuse has audible differences (something I can never hear btw), it would make sense that the contact parts of the on/off switch would be important too.
So my real question is does the quality of the on/off switch matter and what is a good on/off switch to use in a power amplifier?
This is all good, and I understand that once you have a system with high enough resolution, the changes are audible. But how often do we open the cover of our equipment to discover that although we spend so much money on a special power cord, the wire (incidentally much thinner and cheaper than our special power cord) from the IEC goes all the way from the back to the front just to go through a cheap on/off switch and back to the rear or the middle of the chassis.
I just looked at partsconnexion, hificollective, vhaudio, and a few other web sites that specialize in audiophile grade parts and could not find a nice solid audio grade on/off switch. Why is that? If a fuse makes a difference in the sound, and (according to some manufacturers) even the direction of the fuse has audible differences (something I can never hear btw), it would make sense that the contact parts of the on/off switch would be important too.
So my real question is does the quality of the on/off switch matter and what is a good on/off switch to use in a power amplifier?
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- 25 posts total
toddverrone684 posts11-01-2017 1:56pmIt has actually been discussed on quite a few threads here and the best idea put forward and used by at least one amp manufacturer was to use a circuit breaker in place of the on/off switch and the fuse. Interesting... Maybe I did not use the right keywords in my search as I could not find any relevant discussions. I will try again. Thanks, Todd. |
tommylion208 posts11-01-2017 6:10pmMy previous post was totally tongue-in-cheek. Having some fun with the kind of responses that those of us who do hear differences with these kind of things often get. You got me! :) |
- 25 posts total