[milkweg]

This reviewer claims by changing the fuse on this Onkyo integrated amp he improved the sound quality quite a lot. I find that hard to believe and think he is a loon.

Stereophile: Onkyo A-9555 integrated amplifier

"While the A-9555 sounded just fine with its stock fuse, when I replaced that fuse with a HiFi-Tuning fuse of the same rating (6.3A, slow-blow), the sound became clearer and more precise, with crisper transients but without any of that "overetched" character that I dislike."

 

[Dan Millheim]

Upgrading my fuses this year (Hifi- Tuning) was the biggest surprise of 2007 for me. I was blown away by how much of an improvement it made. I can't recommend this upgrade enough, for the money, it is a "Killer" tweak!

 

[Bizzel]

I would agree that it's pure placebo but there are plenty here who claim to hear the difference. I personally don't believe that changing a small fuse wire produces a significant difference.

 

[slwiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Millheim /img/forum/go_quote.gif Upgrading my fuses this year (Hifi- Tuning) was the biggest surprise of 2007 for me. I was blown away by how much of an improvement it made. I can't recommend this upgrade enough, for the money, it is a "Killer" tweak!

Which particular brand of fuse did you get. Was it one of those audiophile cryo'ed ones or simply a ceramic one?

 

[milkweg]

I'll do more research before calling everyone who believes this tweak is a loon but I put this right up there with green majic marker on the outer edge of your cd's. Or is it black now?

p.s. How much do these "audiophile" fuses cost?

 

[slwiser]

I have yet to jump on the audiophile fuses myself but I have seen them for about 30$. I did get some replacement ceramic fuses from digikey and they cost a lot more than the ones that are glass with a thread of wire. These cost over dollar each. The cryo'ed ones use these normally and cryo them and sell them for 30$. Handling and stamping their name of them cost a lot I guess. I have read that the ceramics sound better than the glass ones even before getting cryo'ed. I also read a review somewhere of before and after. Just do the Google thing and you might find it.

 

[Sovkiller]

If you beleive that a power cord will change the sound of any audio equipment, then you have to believe than a fuse must do is as well, as you are restricting all the power flowing in/out, by the fuse, usually a really small gauge of wire, not even of a good purity or conductor to begin with, that will blow with any excess of current circulating throught it...

Sorry but I do not believe either one...

 

[Acoustic Chef]

I was handed a fuse which I think was just a mag bridge, and the difference was most defiantly there. The speed of the amp nearly doubled.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sovkiller /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you beleive that a power cord will change the sound of any audio equipment, then you have to believe than a fuse must do is as well, as you are restricting all the power flowing in/out, by the fuse, usually a really small gauge of wire, not even of a good purity or conductor to begin with, that will blow with any excess of current circulating throught it... Sorry but I do not believe either one...

Sov, I'd hold off tell you get your power 1 cord...

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acoustic Chef /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sov, I'd hold off tell you get your power 1 cord...

I'm open minded, and enough to try what is beyond my believes (and this case is one of them) and trsut me that I have proved myself wrong a few times, but in other cases I'm still standing of what I beleived...To be honest with you, and to remove all hints of placebo effect, I do not expect a miracle, let's see...

 

[Acoustic Chef]

Common now…. your not allowed to be a skeptic anymore...

https://www.virtualdynamics.ca/content.php?id=254

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acoustic Chef /img/forum/go_quote.gif Common now…. your not allowed to be a skeptic anymore... https://www.virtualdynamics.ca/content.php?id=254

Let not this debate go in the wrong direction....BTW we all know that differences in cables exist, the problem is not to measure them, and get a number, those numbers already exist, you can measure a lot of parameters in cables (well indeed not a lot but a few of them) the main problem always have been to determine to what extend these numbers measured by instruments are audible to us...for example to go from a 150db signal to noise to a 155db in an audio device, will do absolutely nothing practically, other than make the design a lot more expensive...Design is a trade off, and not only in audio, in life in general, you need to set certain parameters or goals to achieve, in a reasonable margin, and cost, otherwise is a cost no object project...You can measure that for example a transducer is able to reproduce 10Hz to 100kHz, to what extend that figure says something about the quality of the sound is still a mystery, why...? Don't ask me...and others will more conservative figures, could sound a lot better...

For every single attempt to demonstrate a theory in electronics, you may find most of the times the opposite field, that will say the opposite mentioning a lot of other arguments not considered in the first study...and offering also even other experiments that will prove the opposite...

Also keep in mind that the results of the power filtering depends not only in the filtering device used, in this case a better power cord, also in the PSU used, and the internal filtering that this PSU uses, topology, design, parts used, etc....and how it handles the noise, trust me that if you have a PSU that improves only by replacing the power cord, IMO you have some room for improvement internally that will be a lot cheaper than expending insane figures in a power cords...I do not know of any well designed PSU, for audio purposes that will cost you over $500.00 to be the manufactured, and you do not need to go insane in complicated topologies, many of the "classic from the books" ones will work for audio applications...just my two cents...

Anyway and regardless of the outcome I feel that at least VD had given a lot of skeptics the possibility of trying in the comfort of their homes, good products, that they believe in, and that is IMO an step forward from the rest at least...Let's at least appreciate that...

Thanks guys

Do you have any fuse I can try for free???? ...LOL...

 

[Acoustic Chef]

Wow, you sure know a lot about cables.
But ya, back on subject. We'll see about the fuse's.

 

[Dan Millheim]

I am using some high end PC cables throughout my system...I even have the "give away" VD P1 as well. I started with two Hifi-tuning fuses on my amp and the sound improvement was so amazing, I ordered some for my Dac and Preamp as well.

IF I were a high end PC builder, I would R&D a synergistic Fuse to offer with my cables as well.

 

[Crow]

Rather unsafe idea, but one could try bypassing the fuse altogether... assuming the fuse is the weakest link, maybe this would reveal the greatest contrast sound-wise.

 

[vvs_75]

You can check if it's make difference in your system just by shortening or replacing your current fuse with piece of wire. If you can hear the difference then there is room for improvement.

The chance that you amp which was working for several month without any problem get flames in the short period during your test negligible.
So try it and tell us!

Happy New Year!

Edit: I am typing like turtle!