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Direction of aftermarket fuses (only for believers!)

It is with reluctance that I start another thread on this topic with the ONLY GOAL for believers to share their experience about aftermarket fuses.
To others: you can call us snobs, emperors w/o clothes,... etc but I hope you refrain posting just your opinion here. If you did not hear any difference, great, maybe there isn’t.

The main driver for this new post is that I am starting a project to mod my NAD M25 7 ch amp for my home theater. It has 19 fuses (2 per channel, 4 on the power supply board, 1 main AC) and I will try a mix of AMR Gold, SR Black and Audio Magic Platinum (anyway that is the plan, I may try out some other brands/models). As it is reasonably difficult to change them, esp the ones on each channel module that requires complete disassembly, I would like to know what the direction is for these models mentioned and of course, others who HAVE HEARD there is a difference please share your experience on any fuse model you have tried.

Fuses are IME directional:
Isoclean is one of the first to indicate the direction (2008/2009) on their fuses. Users of HiFi Tuning (when the awareness rose quite a bit amongst audiophiles) have mostly heard the difference.

As an IEEE engineer, I was highly skeptical of cabling decades ago (I like the speaker design of John Dunlavy but he said on many occasions that cables nor footers matter at all, WRONG!). Luckily, my curiosity proved me wrong as well. I see the same skepticism that I and many others had about the need for aftermarket cables many, many years ago now on fuses and esp on the direction on fuses.

Another example is the direction of capacitors (I do not mean electrolytic types). Even some manufacturers now and certainly many in the past did not believe it can make a difference sonically. Maybe some do but it takes time in the assembly to sort and put them in the right direction/order (esp as some of the cap manufacturers still do not indicate "polarity") so that maybe is one argument why this is not universally implemented.








128x128jazzonthehudson
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Charles1dad wrote,

"Hi Jazz,
It's very possible that there could be some degree of marketing hype involved, it wouldn't be the first time for an audio product. That's why I try to keep it simple, I just listen to a product and form an impression based solely on what I hear."

I would probably not call it marketing hype.  I'd call it good marketing.  The whole idea is too catch people's attention, no? Let me give you an example. I call my tourmaline anti static gun product a Particle Accelerator. Is that wrong? 

Geoff Kait
machina dynamica
advanced audio concepts
jea48
4,453 posts
 

jazzonthehudson,

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/search.mpl?forum=tweaks&searchtext=fuse+direction

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Thanks for the link to the ton of threads on AA on the dodgy subject of fuse directionality. One thing I see that’s fascinating is that posts on fuse directionality go back at least as far as 2001. So if my math’s right people have been crabbing about aftermarket fuses and directionality for at least 15 years ago.
mitch2
4,013 posts
 
Geoff,
Your proficiency in simple mathematics is duly noted  : -)
jazzonthehudson's avatar
jazzonthehudson OP
277 posts
 
Great feedback, keep them flowing and thanks for the link jea48! Maybe i should spend more time at AA, people there seems pretty open minded. No snide comments, no declaration of insanity.

Thanks auxinput for a great assessment of what would fit and bringing up the Furutech fuse, it was on my mind last year that slipped off my list. Since it is just "home theater" or my 2nd system, I have put a limit of $75 per fuse/$ 150 board for the main channels, so the Furutech seems to be a great contender. I have a NordOst Valhalla power cord to inject speed and transparency into the NAD pre, the NAD M25 is currently fed by a HiDiamond P4, possibly superseded by the Cerious Technologies Graphane Extreme (awaiting feedback on another thread). I have already bought the SR Black for the main fuse, upgrading from the SR Red.

For my DAC (PSA DSD), my favorites are Audio Magic BeeWax and Audio Horizon Platinum, the Platinum has better midrange whereas the BeeWax is extremely well balanced.

I have the AM nano liquid a long time ago in my CJ 140 mono blocks, upgraded them with HiFi Tuning Supreme first (the other variants of HiFi Tuning all have too many deficiencies), then SR Red.

For my HT and library system, I used to have Isoclean fuses, before they were upgraded.

Unrelated to fuses since this has been brought it up:
About using superlatives in one’s product description. Ted Denney has earned a great deal of skepticism and still comes up every time with promises close to live-changing experiences in audio. His HFTs, pretty popular, got a revision not long after the release (HFT V2) and now he proclaims the new UEF dots are the new gold standard. GK, the audiophile world has a good memory. I have been using SR power cables and have abandoned them because every 6 months the king died, long live the new king! I get there is R&D (I doubt there is really that much R&D at SR, maybe marketing R&D as a lot of Ted’s three letter gimmick are rehashed gadgets) but is not it coincidental (for the top line of his company) that SR product releases are so predictable and constantly short?
Lastly, people listen to people they like and buy from people they like (hel-loo!). There are plenty great examples (Lew @CJ , Peter @Symposium, Jim @PAD, John @Audience, Dave@StarSound, Chris @VHAudio, ...etc).

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