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Higher amperage fuse for sound quality

I apologize if this question is either (1) ridiculously stupid or (2) already been beaten to death. And I'm definitely not looking to re-litigate whether aftermarket fuses are anything other than b.s.

I've read that people sometimes choose higher amperage fuses. This is because aftermarket fuses are supposedly built to tighter specs and therefore prone to blowing. Supposedly SR is noted for this.

Recently I was looking into some SR fuses and the dealer told me that higher amperage was also better for sonics. I'd never heard that before.

 

So last night I was looking through my stuff and discovered an unused 3.15a fuse. (I used HiFi Tuning throughout.) I decided to try it in my transport which takes a 1.6a. Everything is plugged into a Shunyata and there were no signs of t-storms so I figured I was safe for an hour or so.

It made the single biggest difference of any "tweak" I've tried. For one, the bass went significantly much deeper, became more authoritative, more controlled, more precise. The treble lost whatever edge it had and became golden and bell-like. Aside from those things, the music generally became more musical, which is difficult to explain. The music "might" have lost a tad of nuance and subtlety but I'm not sure. It's a small exaggeration to say that it sounded like a different amp. 

Being risk averse, I switched the fuse back, but I'm still so surprised. Has anyone had a similar experience? 

rfprice
rfprice OP
150 posts
 

Pingstonsmile, in fact I did swap the fuses back and forth 2-3 times to confirm, and the results were the same. You might be right about the smaller fuse being compromised, but as for cold starts, I leave the transport powered on continuously, so it hasn't been exposed to daily cold starts. (Although I don't exactly remember the history of this fuse. It might be 2-3 years old and might have been used in a tube amp that did get turned on and off. However it looks brand new, there is no discoloration, etc.)

Maybe I should go to the hardware store today and get two fuses and see if they show similar results. I suppose that would indicate if my HFT fuse is weakened. I hope that's the case. I'm rooting for a simple explanation that can be easily rectified. I don't wish to use a wrong-size fuse. 

audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,018 posts
 

I would not be screwing around with higher amperage fuses. The fuse present in the devise was designed to be sacrificial and to blow at a certain predetermined parameter, to protect the electrical circuit(s) upstream. Besides, a fuse should not make one iota of difference when it comes to what you are hearing. 

theaudiotweak
2,796 posts
 

I haven't used fuses in 17 years.

barts's avatar
barts
712 posts
 

This got me to thinking (always dangerous) about what is the manufacturing tolerance of any given fuse.  Fuses are not perfect, so Googling I go. Turns out that a typical fuse is 90-110% of its published rating.

Does anyone know if SR or HFT or whatever boutique fuse are held to a tighter tolerance?

Wonder why it has been reported here many times over that SR fuses blow a lot and they have a free replacement policy of some sort.  And my understanding is they typically suggest to increase the fuse rating.

The mind wanders.

Regards,

barts

jetter
3,033 posts
 

Rambling speculation (only) on my part.

I would think that the amp designer voices an amplifier or preamplifier to sound a certain way he/she considers ideal.  If he/she wanted the amp/pre to sound as it does with a boutique fuse or different amperage fuse he would have voiced the amp/pre to sound that way without needing to use a boutique or different amperage fuse.

Conversely, if he had originally designed the amp/pre using a boutique or different amperage fuse he probably would have voiced the unit to sound identical to how it would have sounded with the non boutique fuses.

In other words, he had a voicing he was aiming for and that voicing is what he thought was ideal.

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