Upgrading Fuses

Metro - Where anyone draws the line between superhuman and human is completely arbitrary.
Zip cord vs. expensive speaker cables superhuman?
NOS Tele vs. new production Electro Harmonix?
Budget amp vs. expensive amp?
mp3s vs. WAV?

You just happen to draw it beneath Hi Fi fuses (and brilliant pebbles in the other thread you started), some other guy draws the line somewhere else. My coworker was telling me the other day I was nuts because I said an iTunes-purchased album I copied to CD sounded bad, and I was wasting my money because I ordered the CD.

2 things I've learned in this hobby:
1. There is enough snake oil in Hi Fi to make your head spin
2. There is way more that goes into what we hear than we know in 2011. We are just scratching the surface.

My guess is that I would not hear a Hi Fi fuse in my system, and that probably nobody can in any system. It appears that it's your guess as well, but a guess it is.
FWIW - If it were me I would swap out the fuses with my eyes closed and see if I could REALLY tell, but not everyone's like me.

I make no claims that "you" ,you know who you are,can hear the differences that a DIY or HiFi fuse can make.

I only claim that I can hear the improved performance of the music.

What I DO claim, is complete acceptance of the claims of Peter Aczel ,going back to the mid 1970's, that fuses do indeed degrade the sound of whatever system they are used in.

Again, I re-iterate,go back to his earliest writings in the Audio Critic and you will see his observations on what bypassing the speaker protection fuses did.

I ,being of the ilk that would rather try it for myself before I pass judgement,did try the same fuse bypass way back in the mid 70's on my Amber stereo amp.

Then I did the same with every tube and solid state power amp, or fused speaker that I owned, and the list is longer than my arm.

Never once did I ever experience any calamities, or damage any gear.
Everytime, the system sounded better.

I used old speaker wire or Romex which cost me nothing.

It was cheap, and DIY, so that should garner some points with a few audiophiles I would think?

But besides being DIY and cheap, it worked.
Just like Peter Aczel said it would.

My ears weren't fooled by advertising hype, I wasn't biased because i had just sold the farm to buy the tweak and I also never saw anyone at THAT TIME say it wouldn't work.

It's only been in the last few years, since the same Peter Aczel made his infamous audio myths, that a new breed of audiophile has emerged on the horizon.

You see him on all the sites.
Always the same arguments ,so much in fact you would think it was the same soul!

He never tries any of the stuff others say work.

Yet he knows for sure that it can't.
How's that for magic hocus pocus abilities?
That trumps a golden ear any day of the week in my book.

He doesn't trust your ears or his, but he just knows that certain things can't work as claimed.

I always wonder, "what's in it for him?"

What's the satisfaction? Is it a sense of superiority that he is too smart to fall for such drivel as a fuse having any significance?

A fuse is a relatively insignificant little thing.Not much to it,it only serves one purpose and that is to blow it's self up.

And yet way back when in the 1970's, the author of the 10 great Audio Myths, felt this little bit of nothing, could indeed play a major role in the sound of the gear it was used in.

Some of the more esoteric gear dispense with fuses altogether for just this reason and use thermal protection.

Ah, and some folks think that fuses don't matter, because they just "know" that they don't.

The next time those folks who don't trust their ears buy any new music or gear, I have to wonder why they would ever do such a thing?

Surely ,if they "think" the new amp sounds better than the old,those thoughts are based on assumptions, hype, marketing and mystique, and have nothing to do with the sound.How could it?The ears lie!Or so they are telling us ,the folks who do rely on our ears to make or break a purchase.

If the ears lie, then why bother with room tuning, or room correction?
It would be a waste of money, and just more trickery.

Ah, but here you can measure the before and after difference of the treatment, and maybe just prove it to yourself that what your ears are telling you is the truth and not a lie.

I am sure you could also measure the before and after effects of a DIY or upgraded fuse.

And if that is how you want to spend your time in this hobby, measuring and debunking and not listening, then by all means have fun.

Personally, I'll be searching out more stuff like the HiFi fuses, and listening to the music, all the music.

"It's only been in the last few years, since the same Peter Aczel made his infamous audio myths, that a new breed of audiophile has emerged on the horizon."

Lacee - I think the thing is that we've always been around, the proof of that is probably the fact that it takes measurement and science geeks to build this stereo stuff in the first place, but the game has gotten so far out of hand that it causes more people to speak up.
For example:
$4000.00 cables and $80 fuses both coincidentally made wonderful by the magic of dark metallurgy and direction arrows and cryo treatment, acceptance that the only way to test something near the limits of perception is to throw out the instruments and scientifically proven methods and then let your imagination run free for two or three weeks, acceptance that wonderful and expensive things work in the world of audio but magically fail to work when applied to the rest of the world of electronics, etc..

That kind of stuff does inspire you to make sure that at least the new folks know that a lot of the stuff in audio is just plain nuts. If folks like you who have been around a good while want to hang with "listen with the ears and don't worry about the psychology" that is certainly your privilege, and it is fun, but if you do something that is scientifically nuts then it seems reasonable that people will point this out now and again. If I walked around with a pan on my head to block my thoughts from aliens, I'd expect this to inspire some conversation.

Jeff,
While I agree that there is enough hype or snake oil in high end audio, it does not apply to all the products. I had a pair of Nordost 4Flat speaker cables for 3 years. Then I decided to try out the current Signal Cables I have. It did not take more than a minute to realize that the Signal Cables were much better. The price difference was not hundreds of dollars between these 2 cables. Later I also did try a pair of Nordost Blue Heavens and Red Dawns which are expensive than my cables, but did not like the sound they imparted in my system. They were a bit bright to my taste. Where is the psychology factor in this case?

The point I am trying to drive is, some hobbyists may go with the "expensive-is-better" theme. But most others will decide on stuff after they experience it. If it does not suite them, they will return or sell it. What baffles me is the "science text book" abiding community makes comments without experiencing things. So you guys totally assume things?

One more thing - I think it is a bit wrong to assume that humans know everything about metals/electricity/etc in physics. There may be some "attribute" about stuff that humans are currently not aware of, that remains to be discovered years later. Yes, I may be wrong, until proven right. But who knew (when first calculated) that there exists matter in this universe that travels faster than the speed of light.

Human brain is so used to paradigms that make sense of everyday life that new paradigms do not seem to make any sense. That is why it is called paradigm shift.

Nicely stated, Lacee. I agree with your perspective save one comment:

*****What's the satisfaction? Is it a sense of superiority that he is too smart to fall for such drivel as a fuse having any significance?*****

I think you got it backwards. It is a sense on inferiority. Inferiority at not being able to hear what others can, or fear of not being able to. The proof of this is in a very telling comment by Metro when he states:

**** the onus of proof is on the person claiming to have extraordinary human abilities****

There is nothing extra ordinary about it. Some have better, or better trained, hearing/listening ability than others. That's all. What I find ironic about all this is that the differences that we are talking about pale in comparison to the differences that musicians debate concerning equipment. Differences, as in the case of Stradivarius violins, no one has reliably been able to measure and quantify.