Should we upgrade high end fuses?

"A wise man changes his mind. A fool, never."

Edkoz, you've certainly earned my respect.

For the record, I'll be trying them soon as well in my Jadis DA60. Each tube is fuse protected. Thinking about it logically (sorry if this isn't the typical subjectivist blather that sends the flat earthers into rage), on my amp, the signal is going through 8 fuses, one at each output tube. Along with the input IEC connector, and selector switch, the fuses are the worst metal/conductors in my amplifier, and possibly, my audio chain. We spend all of this money for interconnects, power and speaker cabling, only to pass the signal through a lousy fuse - there has to be a better way, apart bypassing the fuse altogether (something I'm not yet willing to do).

I agree, Trelja. Go for it, Edkoz, and I hope we haven't steered you wrong!
Dave

PS: Thought I'd tell one on myself. My tubed phonostage is a heavily
modded NYAL Moscode SuperIt, with a large outboard power supply. This
has its own fuse, and I replaced it with one of the pricy jobs and definitely
heard an improvement. When I opened up the main unit to do some tube
rolling, I spotted another fuse on the PC board. Looked like it hadn't been
moved since I got my SuperIt in 1985. So I removed the fuse, cleaned it and
the fuseholder with Caig DeOxit and ProGold, then applied Walker SST (silver-
bearing grease) to the ends. Incidentally, this is what I did to all the fuses
before going for the pricy replacements; it makes a difference. After doing all
this, I thought I heard an improvement, albeit a very subtle one, not enough
to warrant replacing the fuse

You guessed it -- the modder told me that the PC-mounted fuse was no
longer in the circuit at all! (Like I said, it was a VERY subtle improvement :-))

And let us not forget there is indeed a 4th audiophile fuse to consider: the Xindak silver fuse, made with pure 4N silver. Here is the website: http://www.xindak.com/english/products/showditail.asp?id=240

I have no further information on this particular fuse.

What I would really like to know is: which is best between the 4 types of audiophile fuses discussed here?

A simple possible answer from a scientific and even testable hypothese would be that:
Given that different metals have different electrical characteristics.
Given that changing anything in a chain will likely effect the whole chain for better or for worse
Then changing a fuse to one with better demonstrable electrical characteristics should result in something sounding smoother, flowing easier, less congested simply because moving through silver, gold, ceramic is a better medium for electrical signal transfers than through brass, pot metal, glass etc.
I am sure someone could set up an A/B system both showing minor electrical changes, less or more resistence in the chain at either point of the fuse and minor differences in drop across it in either voltage, more likely or amperage.
Just some quick thoughts. Being able to come up with a possible test and some measurements is no guarantee that what any test shows, even if duplicated exactly, would be accepted as proof of anything other than this test produces these results.

Nevertheless this makes me think that there should be some physical basis for what some are hearing and it may be patially based on the electrical physisc of the fuse and part on the resolution quality of the system.
Just some thoughts others may think differently but thanks for the thread it has helped to make my mind up for me to at least try a couple and see where it leads

I do believe Dopogue and others when they say there is an audible difference. But from what I know about electronics, it shouldnt make a difference. 120 Volts AC comes thru the fuse/power switch/power transformer primary circuit, and through a magnetic field only (no other direct electrical connection) to the transformer secondary, which has fewer(more) turns of wire (usually fewer for solid state-sometimes more for tube gear).
The secondary is connected to diodes which convert it to varying DC. This is then filtered with capacitors to smooth out ripples and then there is a voltage regulator to make sure that the DC voltage stays the same. This DC voltage is then used to power all the transistors/tubes/IC's etc.

My point is, after all this processing the voltage is transformed from 120V ac (which is really 340 Volts when measured on an oscilloscope) down to, say, 12 Volts DC. There is plenty of power (usually about 1875 Watts) available from the plug end, but maybe the component only uses 35 watts. So theres plenty of 'push' if needed.

Fuse materials: Silver is the best conductor of all metals, Gold is less so, but unlike silver won't corrode (unless you put cyanide on it ;) ) Cheap fuses use (I think) Chrome-plated steel. Poorer conductors will cause more resistance, hence more voltage lost in the fuses internal resistance. BUT the difference in resistance between a gold-ended fuse and a chrome one is infintesimal. So you would get 120 Volts on the component side with a gold fuse, you may get 119.999 Volts with a chrome plated one.

So logically speaking, you would say it makes no difference. But if you have heard the difference with your own ears, then I cannot argue with that (and I am not). I am just pointing out that it don't SEEM like it would matter even though it does.

Also the above tech info can be applied to Power Cords as well. The energy loss in a cheap 20 cent Chinese power cord should be not much different than an expensive audiophile cord. But I know that there are just too many 'Goners here that swear that there IS a difference.

I believe them. It just don't "compute".