Audiophile Fuses

shel50 said:

yes---I posted a message saying same thing---littlefuse makes
legit priced right fuses..been using them for a while now

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bazelio said:

No, your "presumably" is the point. Audio gear generally doesn't ship with anything other than run of the mill fuses. And yet they sound better than most of the audiophile trinkets that are talked about here. That means to me that run of the mill fuses themselves deserve discussion in this thread and the 285 most certainly does. Carry on.

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Republicoftexas69 said:

Could be, but there are 2 saying AP fuses are a waste of $$$

I rather enjoy tube rolling much more than the money spent on these purple things.

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bazelio said:

I'll take a couple slugs. What sizes do you have? Feel free to PM me.

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Carlsbad said:

@highstream If that were the case, then your house would be at risk since we we switched from fuses to breakers to protect your home decades ago.

I have 40 years experience in the utility business as an engineer and a manager. At this moment, I have an electrical engineer designing a new 12kv electrical supply for a medium sized facility and we are working through the protection scheme. Fuses are still used in a few places where minimal protection is required but circuit breakers are required instead of fuses in most applications because they do a BETTER job of protecting the equipment and the upstream circuit.

Recognize that the fuse is there in your component as a good faith attempt to prevent or limit damage to the component should a short or transient occur. the house and the wall circuit are protected by your circuit breaker. Fuses are sized to protect the downstream load.

There are 2 main types of circuit breakers: magnetic and thermal. Thermal breakers are not much better than fuses if at all. they still rely on a bimetal strip to heat up which means they have to have a significant resistance (to create the heat) and limit current flow during dynamic sections. This degrades sonic performance.

Magnetically tripped circuit breakers do not limit current and for large and important circuits they can carry tremendous amounts of current and trip very fast. Note that in your amp a slo-blo fuse is often used that isn't a fast interrupt. Magnetically tripped breakers can be extremely complex and powerful. I have seen breakers that cost $50k to have a contractor program them.

Certainly I do believe a circuit breaker will make quite a bit of difference in the sound--an improvement. A circuit breaker has high current contacts with very low resistance so they avoid all the negatives of fuses. It will not degrade sonic performance.

given the market for audiophile fuses that still have to blow so they offer a limited improvement over the standard fuses, I can't fathom why this hasn't been developed and offered. My job is getting easier and I may start developing one. As I said, the SDFB is making good progress.

Note that fuses NEVER improve sonic performance. An audiophile fuse can cause less degradation in sonic performance.

I do testing with high purity copper slugs to evaluate the effect the fuse is having on each component. If the slug doesn't improve the sound, then the fuse is doing no harm. this is generally true on a low current device (such as a streamer) with a good power supply. Amps seem to always benefit from eliminating the fuse.

If anyone wants a slug for testing, let me know, i made a lot of them.

As for pricey--the $400 to $1200 audiophile fuses seem to be flying off the shelf. Anybody that spends $100k on a system should not hesitate to spend a few hundred for a clear improvement. I can't see an audio specific circuit breaker costing more than $200 to $500 and probably less if mass produced. If bespoke breakers are made with solid silver contacts and the like, I'm sure they will get more expensive.

Jerry

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Randyrue said:

Hello Jerry, I would very much like a couple of slugs for testing. I was trying so purples and they blew has soon as I powered up. I was then sent the next size up and they were working for a couple months then one blew. This got me to check this forum. Slugs make a lot of sense to me and would like to test this. Please PM me and let me know if this is still an option. Thanks Randy

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Carlsbad said:

@highstream If that were the case, then your house would be at risk since we we switched from fuses to breakers to protect your home decades ago.

I have 40 years experience in the utility business as an engineer and a manager. At this moment, I have an electrical engineer designing a new 12kv electrical supply for a medium sized facility and we are working through the protection scheme. Fuses are still used in a few places where minimal protection is required but circuit breakers are required instead of fuses in most applications because they do a BETTER job of protecting the equipment and the upstream circuit.

Recognize that the fuse is there in your component as a good faith attempt to prevent or limit damage to the component should a short or transient occur. the house and the wall circuit are protected by your circuit breaker. Fuses are sized to protect the downstream load.

There are 2 main types of circuit breakers: magnetic and thermal. Thermal breakers are not much better than fuses if at all. they still rely on a bimetal strip to heat up which means they have to have a significant resistance (to create the heat) and limit current flow during dynamic sections. This degrades sonic performance.

Magnetically tripped circuit breakers do not limit current and for large and important circuits they can carry tremendous amounts of current and trip very fast. Note that in your amp a slo-blo fuse is often used that isn't a fast interrupt. Magnetically tripped breakers can be extremely complex and powerful. I have seen breakers that cost $50k to have a contractor program them.

Certainly I do believe a circuit breaker will make quite a bit of difference in the sound--an improvement. A circuit breaker has high current contacts with very low resistance so they avoid all the negatives of fuses. It will not degrade sonic performance.

given the market for audiophile fuses that still have to blow so they offer a limited improvement over the standard fuses, I can't fathom why this hasn't been developed and offered. My job is getting easier and I may start developing one. As I said, the SDFB is making good progress.

Note that fuses NEVER improve sonic performance. An audiophile fuse can cause less degradation in sonic performance.

I do testing with high purity copper slugs to evaluate the effect the fuse is having on each component. If the slug doesn't improve the sound, then the fuse is doing no harm. this is generally true on a low current device (such as a streamer) with a good power supply. Amps seem to always benefit from eliminating the fuse.

If anyone wants a slug for testing, let me know, i made a lot of them.

As for pricey--the $400 to $1200 audiophile fuses seem to be flying off the shelf. Anybody that spends $100k on a system should not hesitate to spend a few hundred for a clear improvement. I can't see an audio specific circuit breaker costing more than $200 to $500 and probably less if mass produced. If bespoke breakers are made with solid silver contacts and the like, I'm sure they will get more expensive.

Jerry

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Randyrue said:

Hello Jerry, I would very much like a couple of slugs for testing. I was trying so purples and they blew has soon as I powered up. I was then sent the next size up and they were working for a couple months then one blew. This got me to check this forum. Slugs make a lot of sense to me and would like to test this. Please PM me and let me know if this is still an option. Thanks Randy

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Carlsbad said:

Thermal magnetic breakers are very popular especially in home protection (main breaker boxes) because they are seen as the safest and best belt-and-suspenders protection for your home and I don't disagree.
Here is a discussion:

Absolutely Everything You Need to Know About a Thermal Magnetic Circui

Do you know how a thermal magnetic circuit breaker works? It’s important that you understand because it’s most likely the best option for your home or building. Make the wrong choice in terms of the circuit breaker you choose and you won’t just waste money, you could put your wiring, even your...

www.circuitbreakerwholesale.com

So as I've said before, the thermal portion of the circuit limits rapid power changes and negatively affects sound. fuses are the worst, bimetal strips are second worst.

So like you, I can't find magnetic (only ) 3A ciruit breakers. There are lots of 1000A magnetic programmable industrial circuit breakers. I'd like to see a simple 3 amp magnetic only circuit breaker for audio.

Jerry

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Thieliste said:

Just ordered a Master fuse for my Vitus SIA-025 Mk2, i already have one in my DAC.
We'll see how that goes vs the Purple one.

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LL21 said:

Do you know the maker of the stock fuse in the Vitus?

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Thieliste said:

ELU ?

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Company - History - With experiences towards future

With experiences towards future

siba.de

LL21 said:

Owned by German fuse manufacturer Siba. Apparently well regarded high voltage fuse maker. Acquired ELU in 1990 it appears.

Company - History - With experiences towards future

With experiences towards future

siba.de

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Thieliste said:

Ok thanks, i almost never used it as i put a Purple fuse in my SIA-025 just after i got it.
Might receive the Master fuse today.

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bazelio said:

There's a video of the Master fuse being used in a PS Audio DAC on YouTube where they switch back and forth between it and another fuse. The difference, even on YouTube, is clearly apparent.

The Master sounds pretty good. I had a chance to borrow one and found it to be a mild improvement over a $0.99 fuse in my T+A DAC. Most of the time, the audiophile fuses sound too {warm, muddy, overdamped} <--- take your pick.

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ssfas said:

PS Audio use specialist “T” fuses on their amps for high inrush load.

I think he was using fuses from HiFi Tuning or Littelfuse and adopted them as standard. They are very modestly priced in the weird world of audiophile fuses, but still many times more expensive than stock fuses.

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highstream said:

Do you know what that T stands for? See the link below. I had two generations of PSA dacs and still have a regenerator, and all the fuses, inside and out, have been standard cheap OEM glass small slow blows. Nothing “specialized” about them. I’ve yet to see or read of a developer using anything but cheapies. I also don’t think an audio-medical Littlefuse costs much more than those. https://nationalfuse.com/what-does-the-t-and-f-stand-for-when-it-comes-to-fuses/.

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