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We Need A Separate Forum for Fuses

LOL, I'll bet I gotcha on that Title! ;)  BTW, I put this thread under "Tech Talk" category as it involves the system physically, not tangentially. 

More seriously, two question survey:

1. Do you think designer fuses are A) a Gift to audiophiles, or B) Snake Oil 

2. Have you ever tried them?  Yes or No

In the tradition of such questions on Agon, I'll weigh in as we go along... 
Feel free to discuss and rant all you wish, but I would like to see clear answers to the questions. :) 
douglas_schroeder
kosst_amojan
2,095 posts
 
Auxinput, 
Really, the folks in favor of fuses are much more the religious zealots than I am. There's no objectivity to their conclusions. Of the tends of thousands of tweakers and DIY'ers out there with benches full of gear, none of them seem to have substantiated the claims made about fuses, or exotic outlet materials, or a host of other claims. It's just patently false that any human has hearing more sensitive than your average scope. I'm curious what's going on here, why people think they're hearing things. But the claims being made so often are hard to believe. 
You're going on about end cap material, conductor, and the envelope... Over 1 inch of circuit! What about the other 100 feet that are 5 or 10 percent tolerance? Traces on PCB that are just plain old copper. Lead solder joints. The yards and yards of wire in the transformer. You know what they use in sensitive circuits in computers that need protection? They use high quality, purpose built resistors. It's an entire categoy of resistors made to do that. You can get them with all kinds of properties. There's just so much that seems fishy to me in all of this. 
auxinput
1,538 posts
 

and that now sounds like a troll message.  Anyways....if you feel that we are the religious zealots, that is interesting because we are only responding to your "attacks" saying that we are completely wrong in our objectivity and results -- where you have not even listened to an upgrade fuse.

1" of A/C circuit is important, especially when the conductor is going to be a really thin wire somewhere between 20awg and 26awg that is typically non-damped and tensioned in air (which will have electrical mechanical resonance just like a guitar string would when plucked).

I can even tell differences when using the larger 10 amp type fuses with the thicker/higher awg conductors.  I just recently went through an exercise comparing big 10A fuses in a receiver (Hi-Fi Tuning Silverstar, Hi-Fi Tuning Supreme, Furutech, stock).  All the 10A fuses still had different sonic signatures.  The differences were drastic enough where it sounded like completely different amplifiers.

There are definitely other areas which affect sound, like power cord connectors.  If you look at a standard IEC connector, there really is only about 1" of conductor as well, but there is an audible difference between an IEC connector with gold-plated conductors and silver or rhodium plated conductors.

Same thing occurs with RCA connectors (another element that is less than 1" long!).  There is a definite audible difference between an gold-plated copper RCA plug and a solid pure silver RCA plug.

kosst_amojan
2,095 posts
 
Auxinput,
What objectivity exactly? Your perceptions? The same perceptions that are interpreting my rational seeking of empirical evidence as an attack? Those tools of perception are the ones you want me to accept as "objective"? Uh..... I'll pass. 
Bottom line. Power supplies should be impervious to the kinds of perturbations you're talking about, especially at the prices you folks are paying for them. Maybe theres something not being properly evaluated in power supply design. I don't know. All I do know is that it shouldn't make a difference. That's the sole purpose of the power supply. 
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
Costco-emoji, I hate to judge before all the facts are in but you seem to not know what empirical evidence even is. Empirical evidence is that evidence gathered from observation. You know, like listening. We observe with our senses. Our sense of touch, hearing, vision, etc. You seem to dismiss listening as proper evidence as if nobody can hear, as if everyone is always fooled, as if everyone in the world is deluded except you.

Dude, wake up and smell the coffee! ☕️ In a hobby that is all about listening and being able to distinguish subtle differences in sound your persistent and vociferous claims that these sensory abilities should be ignored or don’t exist come across as well, rather bizarre. That you would engage in such an angry and angst ridden campaign against fuses and other controversial tweaks seems, well, kind of neurotic.

In any case, on with the inquisition!


grannyring's avatar
grannyring
4,637 posts
 
@geoffkait Very well said and perhaps the best summation I have read regarding the attitude some have adopted. 
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