fuses - the $39 ones or the 85 cent ones

I think the $39 issue is a strawman. If the darn thing cost $100 bucks and improved the sound I'd buy it. And as a practical matter many of us will try it, what the heck. In fact I have tried it. If it improves the power to the system, improves noise/ripple, great. That is an explanation of why it should make a difference, though we may be in a hobby where not everything has an explanation.

On the other hand, when I speak to three well known and very respected, long-time designers of highend amps and preamps, and all EEs by the way, and to say the least they are very dubious of the whole fuse concept making a difference, then I got to believe they don't know what they are talking about, or they are deaf -- the equipment they make suggests neither is the case. Which of course did not stop me from trying them:)

A few days ago I installed two Hi-Fi Tuning fuses to each of my Maggies 3.6. The Maggies 3.6 use a 4 Amps fast blow fuse to protect the mid-range driver and a 2.5 Amps fast blow fuse for the tweeter. The fuses are mounted between the crossover and each driver following the signal path. So the signal passes through the fuses and they also get all the vibrations from the speaker frame.

I did a shootout between the following fuses:

• Hi-Fi Tuning ceramic fuse, $39/each.
• Littel Fuse glass fuse, $2/pack of 5.
• Radioshack glass fuse, $2.99/pack of 3.
• Buss Fuses ceramic fuse, $6/pack of 5.

All the fuses are UL Listed, except for the Hi-Fi Tunning one.

In this particular application, the ceramic fuses performed better than the glass fuses. The overall difference is that the sound coming from the mid-range driver and the tweeter driver is cleaner with ceramic fuses than it is with the glass fuses. For instance, piano notes sound more consistent with the ceramic fuses.

The Radioshack fuse produced a slightly cleaner sound, but the clear winner by far is the ceramic fuse made by Buss Fuses @ $6 per pack. There is a more coherent presentation with this fuse. The mid-range has more weight and the highs are a lot cleaner.

I was quite surprised that the much cheaper ceramic fuse performed better in this particular application. This makes me believe that the Hi-Fi Tuning fuse is simply a scam. In the case of Hi-Fi Tuning, you're basically paying for the printing of the logo on the fuses, selling the fuses to a distributor, which a the same time sells the product to a reseller. This process seems to cost $39 to the end user.

My suggestion is go to mcmaster.com and get the cheap ceramic fuses from them, or any other supplier, and save the money to buy some music.

After a long listening with the cheap ceramic fuse, I inserted the Littel Fuse glass fuse and I could only listen with this fuse for 5 seconds. The cheap ceramic fuse is here to stay.

About two weeks ago, I finally got around to cleaning the fuse in my Wadia 581se cd/sacd player, which has a Great Northern Sound Statement upgrade. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a HiFi fuse. I called Steve @ GNS and he said that it makes a nice addition to his upgrade. Because of this, I bought a HiFi fuse for my preamp. It has been in the preamp for two days now and the results are all positive. Better clarity, high frequency extension, texture, bass and sense of space. Stan

How can a fuse influence noise / ripple ??

Pubul57, I DO think that 39$ is germain to this discussion.
That hi-end is hi-priced is NO joke. I've got a fortune in this stuff. When a 3500$ integrated is shipped, and the company says....(not direct quote) that the piece would be better with a different power cord.... That personally strikes me as kind of scruffy. I lack for the correct word.
Fuses, even 'cost no object' are impossible to price at 39$ with nothing but anecdotal evidence. Many people still think that Mercedes is the be all / end all of the automotive world but statistics...IE, real data, simply do not support that contention. Many other cars have a lower failure/defect rate, but lack the Cachet of the MB label.
My boss at work is fond of saying, and has a poster on his wall.....'Show Me The Data'. I have 30+ years experience in my technical field, and am considered a resource / expert, having trained many degreed engineers and other technicians.
BUT, I still must produce at least a modicum of evidence to support some of the nuttier things I come up with. After further testing and qualification (NOT DBT) some ideas are validated, some arent'.
Just like Mac used to do with the speaker wire tester, showing that the only speaker wire people could reliable tell from others was a 50ft length of 16ga or 18ga.
The boutique speaker wire guys pretty much put an end to that line.
Maybe one day, I'll sit down with a couple fingers of Chivas and have somebody change some fuses for me....or not!
I'll try to tell if the new unit is installed...or not.
I'll even get a couple buddies over for the listening. I'm not going to hold my breath. I may just change my 4A maggie fuses to the ceramics.
Like Chicken Soup......'Couldn't hurt'...............