Audiophile Fuses

Blue58 · Feb 6, 2018

Speedskater said:
Thirty days would be some 720 hours, it doesn't require a listener. But the number of uncontrolled variables is staggering.

Yes you are correct, so only 14 days if the fuses are in a DAC or Preamp that is on 24/7.
In power amps, turned off when not using, perhaps 60 days @ 5hrs day listening session.
Now that is a long time, so I just jury rigged a little board with mains plug, fuses and light bulbs that can be changed for a radio. I know it’s not pulling huge amounts of current but neither are my amps.
I’m hoping this will do most of the burn-in necessary.

Cheers

Audiophile Bill · Feb 6, 2018

Hi all,

I recently added SR blues to my system - 1 in the mains power cord to the distribution strip and another in my phono stage. I own SR blacks and reds already that are used in various applications.

With no burn in at all, the SR Blue demonstrated a lower noise floor than the Black with increased resolution and decay. The bottom end was tight. What was missing was the bloom and generous staging of the black. After 12 hours of my system being left on when I returned the next day, the bloom and stage was back and exceeded the Black. I will be listening this evening to see whether more hours have further led to improvements. All in all without lots of burn in, I can safely say the Blue is the best of all the audiophile fuses I have tried. This includes the SR red and black, the Verictum, and the dreaded Beeswax.

Audiocrack · Feb 6, 2018

Audiophile Bill said:
Hi all,

I recently added SR blues to my system - 1 in the mains power cord to the distribution strip and another in my phono stage. I own SR blacks and reds already that are used in various applications.

With no burn in at all, the SR Blue demonstrated a lower noise floor than the Black with increased resolution and decay. The bottom end was tight. What was missing was the bloom and generous staging of the black. After 12 hours of my system being left on when I returned the next day, the bloom and stage was back and exceeded the Black. I will be listening this evening to see whether more hours have further led to improvements. All in all without lots of burn in, I can safely say the Blue is the best of all the audiophile fuses I have tried. This includes the SR red and black, the Verictum, and the dreaded Beeswax.

Thanks Bill for sharing your ‘blue experiences’. Is the beeswax fuse in your view the most controversial ‘deserving’ the qualification “dreaded”?

Audiophile Bill · Feb 6, 2018

Audiocrack said:
Thanks Bill for sharing your ‘blue experiences’. Is the beeswax fuse in your view the most controversial ‘deserving’ the qualification “dreaded”?

Lol yeah. Well it sounded very muffled in my GG so I moved to SR Black. You might like the Verictum, Rudolph.

Audiophile Bill · Feb 7, 2018

Update on the SR Blue. Somehow the noise floor seems to be lower still and the image has become a lot more 3D as a result. Resolution is the best I have heard in my current system. No brainer upgrade imho.

Blue58 · Feb 7, 2018

Audiophile Bill said:
Update on the SR Blue. Somehow the noise floor seems to be lower still and the image has become a lot more 3D as a result. Resolution is the best I have heard in my current system. No brainer upgrade imho.

And just wait until 300+ hours and it goes boom, expanding in all areas. Sweet!

spiritofmusic · Feb 7, 2018

Well, with 18 fuses in my system, I’m eternally grateful that the Blues came out meaning I got Blacks at end-of-line discount.

twitch · Feb 7, 2018

Blue58 said:
And just wait until 300+ hours and it goes boom, expanding in all areas. Sweet!

LOL ...........what are you guys drinking on your side of 'the pond' ??

Blue58 · Feb 8, 2018

twitch said:
LOL ...........what are you guys drinking on your side of 'the pond' ??

Rosie Lee of course.
Strong enough to stand a spoon in.

spiritofmusic · Feb 8, 2018

Barry, dont forget the Norfolk ale coming your way next visit .
Btw, if I had to wait 300 hrs for fuses to “expand in all areas”, they had better be REALLY expansive. Like a real trip.

Audiophile Bill · Feb 8, 2018

Blue58 said:
Rosie Lee of course.
Strong enough to stand a spoon in.

Lol

Great stuff, Barry.

highstream · Feb 15, 2018

To follow up about the SR Blue fuse in my Directstream dac, I'm 24 hours into burning in an Audio Magic Ultimate beeswax. I'll post more in a couple of weeks, but suffice it to say that while I think it's well worth it to at least take a listen to the Ultimate - I find the Blue tonally intolerable - both are excellent in at least some of their characteristics but sound very different, at least in my system. It'd be nice to have a pair of each to stick into the ATC SCM19As, to figure out the best total combo.

It turned out that the Audio Magic "SHD" fuse that I much preferred tonally over the Blue was actually the original beeswax, (now) called Premier Super. I'm trying to get my money back from the guy who sold it to me (and others) on Audiomart (he apparently didn't realize what he had). For the information of anyone looking to buy an AM fuse, it's important to know that Audio Magic doesn't have any photos of their beeswax fuses/boxes on their website and that the photos of the SHD (box, fuse) currently showing on Highend Electronics and Jaguar Audio Design sites are not the SHD, but the original version. Here's a little guide:

- Premier Super (original beeswax) - says Premier Super so on box
- Super High Definition beeswax - has SHD sticker on fuse and label on box
- Ultimate beeswax - has "SHD - Beeswax Ultimate" on box and Ultimate on fuse (as I recall), and the box and fuse are gold color

Audiocrack · Feb 16, 2018

Interesting to hear from you how the ultimate beeswax fuse will turn out after it has been broken in.

How many hours does this fuse need to be considered fully burned in? Thinking seriously about getting the ultimate beeswax fuse myself (for my preamp) to try it out but only if I can arrange that it will be broken in upfront.

As mentioned before manufacturers that produce significant amounts of fuses - such as SR - should in my view start a service by which they offer their clients fully broken in fuses. We all hate this damn process of burning in fuses and I presume it must be possible for these manufacturers to employ some kind of (fuse) cooker.

Anyway, I would appreciate if you keep informing us, Highstream, about your experiences with the ultimate beeswax fuse.

highstream · Feb 16, 2018

The note inside says 125 hours, but I've never found manufacturer estimates to be sufficient, except for Morrow Audio, which tells users what to expect from 0 to 400. The AM fuse seems so far like it may be an exception.

If anyone is interested in a 1.25A small slow blow SR Blue that’s just been burned in at reasonable price, feel free to PM. It's also posted at a few of the usual classified sites.

Blue58 · Feb 26, 2018

I hate to keep posting about fuses but I promise this will be my last effort.

I received two SR Blue 32mm 2A fuses for my SET amps and rather than struggle with the 300 hour burn in, only using the amps for 5hrs a day would take 60 days, I rigged a little device using a light bulb and left them burning 24hrs a day for 14 days.

After burn in I installed the Blue fuses in place of the AMSHD Beeswax fuses that I really like for their tone and musicality and settled to listen for a few hours each day to ascertain if they were better or worse than the Beeswax fuses. The fuses were installed with writing reading left to right, the same way my smaller Blue is installed in the SGMS2015 and they same way as the Beeswax.

My thoughts after 3 days was a thinness to the sound, very low noise floor, some lack of musicality and a decent soundstage.
I really wasn’t enjoying this presentation thinking it gets the transparency correct but this lack of tone and the harsh delineation of instruments was bugging me. There was a sheen across all frequencies that I couldn’t quite place. ‘Tonally intolerable’?

So, the Blues weren’t for me. Or so I thought. Today I flipped direction of both fuses, writing from right to left, and immediately all that tone that is apparent from the small fuse in the SGM came flooding back. Greater soundstage, equally low noise floor and wonderful ‘ up front’ presentation of voices. Phew! I thought the Blues were going in the bin but they’re now staying put.

Compared to the Beeswax they are equally tonally dense but with added clarity due to the lower noise floor. Soundstage is deeper and wider and overall nicely balanced across the frequencies ie. nothing shouting out. I’m hoping some more time, in the right direction, will help improve sound quality still further.

Moral of the story, determine direction BEFORE you burn them in!

Blue58

highstream · Feb 26, 2018

Good information, although I switched directions before trying a Beeswax and didn’t find a substantial difference. Which beeswax do you have? The Ultimate is substantially different and better than previous models.

Barry2013 · Feb 26, 2018

Blue58 said:
I hate to keep posting about fuses but I promise this will be my last effort.

I received two SR Blue 32mm 2A fuses for my SET amps and rather than struggle with the 300 hour burn in, only using the amps for 5hrs a day would take 60 days, I rigged a little device using a light bulb and left them burning 24hrs a day for 14 days.

After burn in I installed the Blue fuses in place of the AMSHD Beeswax fuses that I really like for their tone and musicality and settled to listen for a few hours each day to ascertain if they were better or worse than the Beeswax fuses. The fuses were installed with writing reading left to right, the same way my smaller Blue is installed in the SGMS2015 and they same way as the Beeswax.

My thoughts after 3 days was a thinness to the sound, very low noise floor, some lack of musicality and a decent soundstage.
I really wasn’t enjoying this presentation thinking it gets the transparency correct but this lack of tone and the harsh delineation of instruments was bugging me. There was a sheen across all frequencies that I couldn’t quite place. ‘Tonally intolerable’?

So, the Blues weren’t for me. Or so I thought. Today I flipped direction of both fuses, writing from right to left, and immediately all that tone that is apparent from the small fuse in the SGM came flooding back. Greater soundstage, equally low noise floor and wonderful ‘ up front’ presentation of voices. Phew! I thought the Blues were going in the bin but they’re now staying put.

Compared to the Beeswax they are equally tonally dense but with added clarity due to the lower noise floor. Soundstage is deeper and wider and overall nicely balanced across the frequencies ie. nothing shouting out. I’m hoping some more time, in the right direction, will help improve sound quality still further.

Moral of the story, determine direction BEFORE you burn them in!

Blue58

No need at all to apologise.
A very interesting post.
I have the blacks so your experience of the blues is very helpful.

Blue58 · Feb 26, 2018

highstream said:
Good information, although I switched directions before trying a Beeswax and didn’t find a substantial difference. Which beeswax do you have? The Ultimate is substantially different and better than previous models.

I used the SHD, Audio Magic previous top line.
I think the Blues are more directional than the Blacks too.
Ultimate Beeswax are almost £300 each after additional tax and shipping so very unlikely I’ll try two just to compare.
Enjoy your Ultimates.

marty · Feb 26, 2018

I've always been rather skeptical of expensive hi-fi fuses. I've tried a few Synergistics but returned them for a refund after a few days. Recently, however, I tried some reasonably priced fuses in my Spectral 400 monoblocs and much to my surprise, found them advantageous. It's British fuse made by Abbington Music Research. They are ceramic fuses with gold plated caps. No idea what magic materials are on the inside if any, but for about $20 each, they are the best fuses I've found. (For me, directionality mattered. I use them so the writing can be read left to right from the end cap fuse holder). Really lovely.
Manufacturer:
http://www.amr-audio.co.uk/html/goldfuse_individual.html
Sourced from ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/AMR-Audiop...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

highstream · Feb 26, 2018

I think of power fuses as a special form of power cord. The better the fuse, the better what's supplied to the unit's most important component, the power supply electrically and (hopefully) sonically.

Audiophile Fuses

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