Audiophile Fuses

bonzo75 said:

Things crashing over at the wam on the fuse thread somebody started.

Click to expand...

They are a highly strung bunch for sure!

Buy them from us?!

Anyone soldered thier fuses in? I know it sounds mental but will sound better imo.

Hello Blue58 and all, Glad I could be helpful. As for fuse directionality I was told the " Flow through" should go exactly as you read it... So the " S - R" is "Left to Right".
For the Lampi I spoke with Lukasz and asked him directly which way it went for both the B7 and the TranspOrt and he told me : "While standing behind the unit, the flow runs from Left to Right". So that makes it easy... If you're behind the unit the fuse goes in as it naturally reads. This obviously kept me from trying both fuse directions although if someone was indeed curious enough to experiment I would be interested in the results...Hope this helps.

bonzo75 said:

Things crashing over at the wam on the fuse thread somebody started.

Click to expand...

Hardly surprising given the Rabidly Objectivist Cabal there! Perhaps you might start a Mook thread for a little further sport.

Harlequin said:

Hardly surprising given the Rabidly Objectivist Cabal there! Perhaps you might start a Mook thread for a little further sport.

Click to expand...

On PFM my thread on Mooks got deleted after 25 pages. I hardly posted on it. There were 3 people with experience of mooks, all said it worked, but the rest of the posters were at each other for 25 pages. Then someone started a thread called It disappeared (because the main mook thread had disappeared). But then that thread got locked down as well.

Lissnr said:

Hello Blue58 and all, Glad I could be helpful. As for fuse directionality I was told the " Flow through" should go exactly as you read it... So the " S - R" is "Left to Right".
For the Lampi I spoke with Lukasz and asked him directly which way it went for both the B7 and the TranspOrt and he told me : "While standing behind the unit, the flow runs from Left to Right". So that makes it easy... If you're behind the unit the fuse goes in as it naturally reads. This obviously kept me from trying both fuse directions although if someone was indeed curious enough to experiment I would be interested in the results...Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

What value fuse are you using?

Lissnr said:

Hello Blue58 and all, Glad I could be helpful. As for fuse directionality I was told the " Flow through" should go exactly as you read it... So the " S - R" is "Left to Right".
For the Lampi I spoke with Lukasz and asked him directly which way it went for both the B7 and the TranspOrt and he told me : "While standing behind the unit, the flow runs from Left to Right". So that makes it easy... If you're behind the unit the fuse goes in as it naturally reads. This obviously kept me from trying both fuse directions although if someone was indeed curious enough to experiment I would be interested in the results...Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

Thanks Lissnr, confirms my thinking, as long as they are manufactured with directionality in mind.
Thank you for your help.
Blue58

Harlequin said:

Hardly surprising given the Rabidly Objectivist Cabal there! Perhaps you might start a Mook thread for a little further sport.

Click to expand...

Oh please do, I will sign in again for that for sure.... They need a good lampooning over there!

Thanks a lot for your comments, Lissnr. I will indulge then.

spazmatron said:

They are a highly strung bunch for sure!

Buy them from us?!

Anyone soldered thier fuses in? I know it sounds mental but will sound better imo.

Click to expand...

Screw the fuses. Replace them with a 6 x 32 mm silver billet and solder that in. No sense using anything that can slow current flow.

While you're at it, ditch the power cord and plugs. Solder/Hard wire the power to the switch.

OK fellas, always a pleasure to jump in when I find something worthwhile. Enjoy.

bonzo75 said:

Things crashing over at the wam on the fuse thread somebody started.

Click to expand...

....wandered over to check that out....quite the highly motivated lynch mob they got there....the high-lite of the thread was someone using Ethan Winer to backstop a point....I laughed so hard my sides still hurt....

....and there was a post by kneesup on page 7 that was interesting .....

"But this is significant: I remembered last night that an old mate of mine is a fuse designer. Yes, That’s right. Fuses – for 40 years. So I rang him and put the issue to him. And this is what he told me:

That fuses are very simple things, but what puzzles the designers, is that the environment the fuse wire travels though makes a very big difference to the characteristics of the fuse. He has always found it extraordinary how the slightest differences in the sand composite mix that is usually used in fuses, can alter the characteristics of the fuse so significantly. We are not talking sonically, because he didn’t design audio fuses. But he could understand why audible differences could be possible from altering such an environment.

.....

Moreover, my friend told me that no one in the world of fuse design that he knows can tell why the sand mixes make the differences they do. It remains a crystalline mystery, and over the years only trial and error has been the solution."

Cheers

Anyone else got the SR blacks installed yet?

Audiophile Bill said:

Anyone else got the SR blacks installed yet?

Click to expand...

Check out this thread: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/synergistic-red-fuse
It started with the Red fuse and end with the Black.

Audiophile Bill said:

Anyone else got the SR blacks installed yet?

Click to expand...

Bill....MCRU now have these in stock.

Harlequin said:

Bill....MCRU now have these in stock.

Click to expand...

Cheers, Roger.

Audiophile Bill said:

Cheers, Roger.

Click to expand...

With a fair wind this week should see me with a Black to compare against incumbent Red in my Ref10, shall report ASAP.

Do audiophile fuses provide the same amperage protection as the OEM fuse it replaces?

While you are changing out fuses, please don't forget the safety aspect of the fuse. There's much more in this post I did a couple of years ago:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-mikey-likey-)&p=176340&viewfull=1#post176340

nc42acc said:

Do audiophile fuses provide the same amperage protection as the OEM fuse it replaces?

Click to expand...

That we don't know.
They often lack safety agency testing.

Audiophile Bill said:

Not sure whether I mentioned but there is a new Black Fuse out by Synergistic Research. Will acquire a couple at some point.

Click to expand...

I went down the audiophile fuse path a few years ago and was not impressed with anything I tried back then. I can't remember everything I tried but I do remember trying Hi-Fi tuning fuses on my Spectral amps and ended up going back to the stock fuses. However, based on some encouraging reports with Synergistic Research Black fuses, I recently bought one to try on my VTL 7.5III preamp. Bottom, line, I'm very glad I bought it with a money back guaranty. It is going back today. I really wanted to like it but it was just not impressive at all. Sonically, I found a total disconnect between a more distant midrange and a poorly defined, softer top end, in addition to nothing special bass. I know fuses can be position sensitive so I flipped the position. Nope. Nada. I even flipped my position-tried listening while standing on my head. Nope- nothing there either. (Referring to head position, not head content!). Ok seriously, I really tried to give these the benefit of the doubt, but each time I went back to the stock fuse, the sound was immediately superior in every way. I have no idea what Luke uses as his stock in the VTL preamp- it appears to be a ceramic fuse as I cannot see the wire. Bottom line- the SR Blacks were hardly a new mountain top for me, rather, a sea of sludge.

I would like to make the following comments/suggestions if I may. First although my experience was negative, this should not encourage others from trying. These are inexpensive investments and if there is a money back guaranty, what do you have to lose? Perhaps you will be surprised. Second, you have to give some companies credit for trying to make equipment that presumes they have listened to a lot of fuses before deciding what to use as factory stock. There may a reason why their stock fuse was chosen. I know Bea Lam listens to everything and she has damn good ears. It would not surprise me that her fuses were chosen for a reason. I suspect this is also true at other companies as well. Its hard for me to imagine that Warren Gehl at ARC or Keith Johnson just use any old fuse in their gear. Again, that should not stop you from trying experimenting yourself. Finally, if you are dead certain that what you are hearing is a mindfk improvement, I encourage you to have a friend swap fuses blindly in your gear and see if you can pick out the mindfk fuse every time. We are all slaves to self-deception. This could be a very informative and easy experiment to do, so why not try it?