Fuses that matter.

Thank you, Roger, for bringing the expertise of a distinguished designer to this issue. As I said in my post dated 4-29-12, the explanations that tend to be offered for the supposed benefits of expensive fuses seem plausible until they are looked at quantitatively.

Best regards,
-- Al

"Thank you, Roger, for bringing the expertise of a distinguished designer to this issue."

Amen.

My best opinion is that a fuse that effects the sound in a significant manner is defective and should be replaced by one that is not.

Roger makes a compelling case. When I hear things like that, it erodes my confidence in my (already tentative) belief that fuses have audible effects. Having said that, I conducted a second experiment (I use that term loosely) that corroborated (I use that term loosely as well) my initial impression that fuses do in fact have audible effects.

In my first experiment about a week ago, I A/B'd the stock fuse in my amp with a Hifi Tuning fuse. I swapped back and forth about 15 or 20 times. Each time, I heard a difference (or to put it less controversially, I BELIEVE I heard a difference). What surprised me almost as much was the fact that I preferred the sound of the amp with the stock fuse (15¢) rather than the fancy fuse ($50).

The day before yesterday I conducted a similar experiment with my preamp. Again, I swapped fuses maybe 15 or 20 times. Again, I heard (or believe I heard) a difference. Again, I preferred the sound of the stock fuse.

In both the amp and the preamp, the Hifi Tuning fuses had a strange phasiness, lack of pitch definition in the bass, and imprecise imaging. None of that was audible with the stock fuses.

Possible interpretations of the data...

1. Fuses have audible effects.
2. I am crazy.
3. A butterfly is trapped somewhere in the house.
4. All of the above.

Which of these is true remains unclear. So I've done the only thing a sane, rational, and sensible person could do.

I've ordered a Furutech fuse.

Bryon

Bryon, Roger talks about any detectable change in sound while we discuss here if "major difference in my sound" that Tbg experienced can be repeated and benefit others.

The assumption that differences in resistance are (solely) responsible for fuse directionality is most likely a false assumption, a strawman argument as it were. As would the assumption that differences in capacitance, if any are measurable, are (solely) responsible for differences in sound. These are precisely the same strawman arguments that skeptics of cable differences have put forth for more than thirty years - I.e., cables that measure the same must sound the same. Of course, any yutz with ears knows that's not the case.