Upgrading Fuses

I've tried it and it made a difference. It made my system more open, faster, articulate, tighter bass and more fluid treble. Listening to familiar music netted new details unheard before. I've tried it first on preamp and heard the change immediately. After that I changed the ones in the amplifiers. The difference became more obvious. Same presentation but more obvious to hear. I don't have golden ears but in my opinion a revealing system.

Changing fuse direction also changed the sound. This time it lost the openness and became darker. Bass became rounder, less detail overall but still better than stock (Bussman ceramic). I guess it depends on what the listener likes.

I just popped in two 5A slo blo HiFi Supremes in my old Acoustat tube servo amps.

The two 1/2 amp fast blos are on back order,but even with the job half done,the sound has improved.

Hard to describe to those who haven't experienced it,and when you try the best you can say is that things just improve in all areas.

Next up is my cd player,but it is costly,Nano fuse is tempting, but I've had such good sound with the Supremes I hate to use anything but them,if only for consistency.

When done that's 9 new fuses so that's about a $1000.00 investment in fuses.

I can hear the riddicule,but it doesn't faze me.

I've experience with other tweeks costing as much or more that haven't been as positive as the fuse upgrades.

And when it comes to swapping tubes or interconnects looking for the big improvement, most times they fail to live up to expectations,so you keep investing in those same tweeks, over and over.

To me a one time investment of $90.00 on a fuse doesn't seem foolish.

But for it not to appear foolish, you have to try it for yourself.

Lacee,

I know what you mean about more expensive upgrades not equaling the Supreme fuses....bought a $500 power cord once that didn't come close.

How would that power cord sound now that you've got the fuse?

This is the point that a lot of folks miss, and some of my friends fall into the category of folks who expect one upgrade to transform the entire system.

Nite and day transformations seldom occur as you move up the food chain in this hobby.

Things get to a certain level and the differences a single tweek like one power cord can make are not always game changing, so folks give up and cry snake oil.

I've found that you have to treat every component as eligeable for tweaking.

That means do all the fuses, do all the same upgraded power cords, IC, etc., and if you can run dedicated lines and use upscale power conditioning go for it.
I am especially pleased with the results when you isolate the cd player on it's own line.
There is less one dimensional, flat sound,you start to notice more distinctions around the instruments, more space if you will.

Tweaking the power cords and fuses then makes these upgrades more noticeable.

You get out of this hobby what you put into it.

If you really want to hear the music,all of the music, you need to make your components work the way they were designed to,at their optimum capacity.
You can't be complacent or lazy,just spinning some discs is fine,if all you want is a few minutes of musical entertainment.

When you sweat the details you reap the benefits and a few minutes turns into hours of musical bliss.

The better the system ,the less you feel like finding something to do as you listen.

The music takes over and demands your full attention, and that's not a hard thing for it to do when it's tweeked.

That's when the system as a whole sounds like you just replaced all the electronics with more expensive ones, when in fact all you've changed are some power products.

Lacee,

Good decisions *do* tend to have a cummulative effect. Like you, I tend to stick with what works and repeat it...until something better comes along. The nano fuses scare me a bit, what with the liquid and all....but I'm eager to hear from someone who's taken the time to compare them to the Supremes....that and a little time to find out what happens if they ever blow. ;-)