THE LATEST---Gold plated fuses?

Sean...The contact resistance of a fuse, even if there is a bit of corrosion, will be trivial compared with the speaker cable, and, in the case of a tweeter, the padding resistor of the crossover network. I am more concerned with the fact that some corrosion products can have diode characteristics which seem more likely to affect the sound.

By the way, your kind loan of Nordost cables caused me to lose faith in Home Depot's finest, and I got lazy and bought some short Goertz cables to go with my five new CI D-200 monoblock amps. Sounds very good, but I don't know if it's the amp or the cables.

Eldartford, It seems like the issue with the fuse, and the importance of it, is where it is located in the signal path. At that point a tiny change will be magnified to a huge issue by the time it reaches the speaker cable.

Despite my skepticism, this thread caused me to try one of the HiFi Tuning fuses. I don't really want to admit this, but I hear a slight difference. I replaced the stock AC line fuse in my McCormack DNA-125 Platinum, and found swith the gold-plated fuse the upper midrange was pulled forward, and the midrange and treble areas became lighter and gained some air. My best guess is faster decay is the cause of this. I'm not sure I like this change; my speakers use the Scanspeak Revelator 9700 tweeter and those things can singe every hair on your body if you're not careful. ;)

I've only listened for an hour or so with the HiFi Tuning fuse in, but once I've really spent some time with it I'll post more thoughts.

For now, I'd say it's like a cable change; whether you like the change is entirely up to your listening taste and your equipment.

The jury's still out for me, but I'll say this: no way am I buying another 6 of these buggers to replace all the stock fuses in my amp. Not happening - even if they were the same price as my stock fuses.

As a sanity check, I plan to put my Seiko watch on top of my CD player next time I get to listen. If I hear another change I'll check myself in to the loony bin, and my wife will write you all a note to serve as a cautionary tale. :)

Howard

I have replaced all 5 fuses in both of my BAT VK200 monoblocks with the HFT fuses (waiting for the moans and groans). Those of you that are quick with math will realize that this is an almost $300.00 upgrade cost. I try to rate all audio purchases on a cost/sonic benefit upgrade, and in this case, the $300.00 was money well spent. Lower noise floor and better micro-dynamics on a system that had been very good prior to the addition ( Shunyata and Nirvana power cords, Audio Magic Reference conditioner, 3 dedicated AC circuits, etc). I have to agree - the power cord analogy is close to the additional improvement in the system, but at this level, the HFT fuses were a significant upgrade and cost a lot less than most good power cord upgrades. Yes, $30.00 fuses are expensive compared to 30cent fuses, but the sonic benefits that occur are worth the cost, at least to me.

Why are manufacturers using such lousy fuses? It seems to be a no-brainer to install these gold plated fuses and advertise it and sell the amp for another 1000$.
Bob P.