QUALITY AND SECURITY OF "LITTELFUSE" PRODUCTS

My first consideration in a fuse is safety (doh!).

I don’t mean to cast aspersions on audiophile fuses, but in this particular area (safety & fire), I’m much more comfortable dealing with a company whose butt is on the line - providing protection for medical, aerospace and other industries where safety is paramount and the consequences of failure are high.

As such, my upcoming NiWatt amplifiers have specified both fuse holders and ceramic fuses manufactured by Littelfuse. Granted, ceramic may be overkill, but I don't put a price on safety ;-)

There are other good manufacturers, and again, I’m not debating the sonic benefits of an audiophile fuse (which raises the question: why no audiophile fuse holders?).

The way I look at it, if I can’t design a world class amplifier using standard fuses, then I should be in a different business.

Of course, people are free to experiment to their hearts’ content, and this is just my perspective as a manufacturer.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design

There is at least one audiophile fuse holder, a silver plated one from Acme Audio. I’m pretty sure your probably making A Strawman Argument wrt the safety issue since AFAIK there are no safety issues with audiophile fuses. If there were I kind of doubt they would be in business as long as they have. What is it, twenty years? Even the Acme fuse holder has been around like, forever.

Very likely, the audiophile fuses are reliable, but I'm a bit OCD, and have extremely low risk tolerance ;-)

If I'm signing my name to something with safety implications, I'm much more comfortable with a manufacturer with track record in the medical industry (for example), where people can die as a result of a poor design.

For the same reasons, and in spite of the extraordinarily low probability of problems with glass fuses, I'm more comfortable with ceramic ones. 

Thanks for the comments about Acme.  I was unaware of them, and I'll check into it.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design

Many of the aftermarket fuses ARE ceramic. Can you believe it? If there were any failures of aftermarket fuses I’m pretty sure you would hear about it here. And all over the Internet. But there is only the sound of crickets. One imagines you probably won’t be purchasing any liquid-filled audiophile fuses anytime real soon. ;-)

Kudos to them for choosing ceramic.

I certainly encourage consumers to use what makes them happy. I hope I made it clear - that my comments were the perspective as a manufacturer and nothing more.

I have a secondary reason for not specifying audiophile fuses, which is to not stack the deck. IOW, someone is free to experiment with replaceable parts to their heart’s content (as long as of course, they're consistent with the specification) and if they discover an improvement in their system, that’s great.

All too frequently however, people try to solve architectural (design) problems with band aids. This is not to diminish the importance of parts quality, and parts (whether it’s fuses or cables or anything else) is a topic for a whole ’nuther thread - a rabbit hole I don’t have time or inclination to rehash for the thousandth time ;-)

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design