Audio Grade Fuses - Page 9

After turning it around, and letting it settle back in the sound is much more dynamic (as opposed to having the fuse in "backwards') and less congested. As far as the overall Furutech improvements (from stock fuse) I'm hearing slightly better separation, more microdetail, and slightly tighter bass response. Leading edges of transients are still quite sharp as they should be (piano attack, for example) but are more musically real...not as harsh as they could tend to be before the Furutech. keep in mind i only have one of the two AC fuses replaced so far (neutral leg I believe).

If its blown why don't you just crack it open and see what's inside. I don't understand, why do you need to ask your dealer?

Just to be clear - when you say directional, the direction of what? Conventional current flow or the actual flow of electrons? Do engineers point the arrow the opposite direction from lay people?

This is AC... current flows both directions alm:

Alternating, by definition, doesn't have a 'direction'

"an electric current that reverses its direction at regularly recurring intervals"

Whichever way around a fuse goes, it'll be the 'correct' direction 50% of the time, if said directionality existed.

Just curious... do you use larger amperage fuses than rated? 3A seems kinda large for most hp amps, my dynahi tranny only needs a 2A slow-blow (without inrush protection). At $30 each, I wouldn't want to have many of those go poof

What is the right direction? Is it when the arrow is pointing in the direction of the positive voltage sine waves or the negative voltage ones?

Excuse the thread bump, but I finally got round to my first audio grade fuse – with a result more interesting than I had expected.

 

This one was a 13A gold capped HiFi Tuning (HFT) that fits into a UK mains plug. It was a “freebie” that came with my Audience Power Conditioner a few months back (see here for my review).

 

That review was based on having the HFT fuse in the plug that fed the Audience – i.e. the common entry point for all my components and so the most crucial. After just enjoying the sound for a few weeks, I swapped the HFT for a stock fuse and this seemed to downgrade the sound slightly. However, the difference was fairly subtle TBH and I couldn’t discount placebo at this point. So then I went to the next level and bypassed the fuse entirely! Before going any further, I’d like to think that all head-fiers are sensible, intelligent people, but for those who aren’t and for newbies…

 

WARNING: DEATH CAN BE FATAL. And even worse, your system will sound rubbish if it’s burnt to a crisp. The only, ONLY place that it is arguably appropriate to bypass a fuse is in a UK mains plug, which is redundant when you already have a circuit breaker/RCD at one end of the chain and the component’s lower rated fuse at the other. Some UK audiophiles use European schuko plugs/sockets as a way of bypassing the 13A fuse. Never, ever try replacing your main component’s fuses with anything other than the correctly rated fuse as recommended by the manufacturer.      

 

Having got that out of the way, the reason I’ve brought this up is that the SQ improvementof fuse bypass above the HFT was considerably greater than that of the HFT above stock fuse. The bypass very obviously built upon the main strength’s of the Audience: micro detail and macro dynamics, with more solid and lifelike images. 

 

My conclusions from this limited test were that (a) fuses can significantly affect a system’s SQ; (b) that they are probably the best value for money tweak you can get – assuming the rest of the system is transparent enough to show it; (c) that HFT still has some way to go to get to the ultimate level (no fuse at all).

       

Dunno. It was a freebie and there was nothing on the packaing to indicate which version. As the end caps looked gold, I've gussed it was the gold version. Based on the earlier comments in this thread, when I (eventually) get round to ordering replacement fuses for my Stax amp and CDP, they will probably be the IsoCleans.