Upgrading Fuses

10-19-11: Milpai
Well, how conveniently do the non-believers ignore genuine requests.

If Jeff has yet to answer your particular question, maybe you could send him a PM instead of attempting to incite others, because the exact same question has and will be posed to the “believers”.

Good day.

Oh well.

Milpai - What exactly is your point, how does it relate to fuses or to anything I've written and no I'm not inclined to write about my system (but you can probably figure most of it out from other threads if it is important to you).

Metro04/Jeff,

My point was related to "generalization" that you make regarding the fuses or other upgrades. You guys make a point that all fuses are same and there is no point in upgrading them. A $0.25 fuse is same as $45 fuse.

On the same lines, I had a particular speak wire that I replaced with a slightly more expensive speaker wire and I could easily make out the difference. But when I tried an expensive speaker wire than the one I currently have, I did not like what I heard. Mind you, I could easily afford the expensive cables, but I did not, since they were not to my taste.

But per you guys, audiophiles spend like crazy and go for expensive stuff. Does this at least make any sense to you that not all audiophiles have that mentality? On the same lines we DO hear the differences - which you claim do not exist. At least I tried a cable, which I did not like and simply returned. I would never make a statement about anything that I have not tried myself. That would be prejudice -isn't it?

I hope you get my point.

I just came upon this thread and offer the following story.

I own a pre-amplifier made by a well known and well regarded U.S. company that has been around, in one form or another, for over two decades. It designs and sells its own stock electronic equipment and also sells upgrades to that stock equipment. My pre-amplifier, which I bought on Audiogon, was an early prototype of its highest level upgrade.

About 10 months ago, I was talking to someone at the company about whether my pre-amplifier lacked any of the current upgrades available. He suggested I take a picture of the insides and send it to him by e-mail. Then, as an after-thought, he asked if I had considered upgrading the fuse. I hadn’t. He said that the people at the company had recently experimented with upgraded fuses and found they improved the sound. He said I could do it myself and suggested that I give it a try. I replied that my knowledge about the inside of electronic equipment was practically zero. No problem, he replied - the fuse was tucked in a little drawer under the IEC power cord receptacle and accessible from the outside. He would provide me with the fuse specification and the names of some supply houses.

The person who spoke to me had no reason to hype the improvement made by the upgraded fuse. He was not trying to sell me the fuse, and he was not trying to sell me his services to replace my fuse. Furthermore, unlike the posters to this thread, to a certain degree he was putting his company’s commercial reputation on the line, because handing out bogus advice could damage its reputation. Finally, who is in a better position to judge whether a fuse makes a particular device sound better than the people who designed, make and service that device on an ongoing basis?

Dougmc - What you say does make sense, however there is always another point of view.
One way for this company to make it's upgrades seem more valuable would be to make other somewhat similar upgrades seem more valuable. IOW - They sell better resistors and capacitors, connectors, whatever. "Do they really make a difference?" the potential customer might ask himself. Well heck, even the fuse makes a difference, so the upgrades must make a difference also. "I'm gettin' them upgrades, Level 3 for me."
I don't know the company of course, so it's purely hypothetical. But I believe it's a valid point.