Synergistic Red Fuse ...


I installed a SR RED Quantum fuse in my ARC REF-3 preamp a few days ago, replacing an older high end fuse. Uhh ... for a hundred bucks, this little baby is well worth the cost. There was an immediate improvement upon installation, but now that its broken in (yes, no kidding), its quite remarkable. A tightening of the focus, a more solid image, and most important of all for my tastes, a deeper appreciation for the organic sound of the instruments. Damn! ... cellos sound great! Much improved attack on pianos. More humanistic on vocals. Bowed bass goes down forever. Next move? .... I'm doing the entire system with these fuses. One at a time though just to gauge the improvement in each piece of equipment. The REF-75se comes next. I'll report the results as the progression takes place. Stay tuned ...

Any comments from anyone else who has tried these fuses?
128x128oregonpapa
But surely your not giving the go ahead to other to do it as well, as it is mains safety issue were talking about.
Al, your your silence is deafening, are you getting splinters?

Cheers George
Uh, Georgie, sorry to burst your bubble but there is no safety issue for fuses. If there was don’t you think UL certification for aftermarket fuses would be a requirement? Hel-loo! The question is still hanging out there - has anyone’s house ever burned down due to a fuse? Answer at 11.

Al, your silence is deafening, are you getting splinters?
Hi George,

At this point a multitude of opinions and experiences have been stated that are relevant to choosing the current rating of an SR fuse, including opinions from technically knowledgeable people such as you and I. Those reading the thread who intend to try SR fuses can and will form their own decisions as to how to proceed.

For those who may be pondering this question, though, I'll add the following question and answer to my previous comments on the matter:

Question: Are the protection characteristics of a stock 5 amp fuse, especially the combinations of current and time that would cause it to blow, most closely approximated by an SR Black 5 amp fuse, or by an SR Black 6.3 amp fuse, or by some other SR Black fuse?

Answer: We don't know.

Best regards,
-- Al
 
You need to answer this question Al, for safety sake, as many here hang on your words.

Are you or are you not advocating that anyone else replace a manufacturers given fuse value with something higher, especially if they have no technical background, so they can monitor any problems like you can

Cheers George
Hi George,

The point to the Q&A in my previous post is that we don’t even know if an SR Black 5 amp fuse should truly be considered to be a 5 amp fuse, as opposed to a 4 amp fuse or something even lower. And the reports we’ve seen from a number of people of blown SR fuses would seem to suggest that one of the latter possibilities could very well be the case, for many if not most or all ratings. Also, fuse derating (the margin between the current rating a designer has chosen for a fuse and the amount of current it conducts under normal conditions) is not a precise science, with designer preferences, the limited number of choices that are imposed by standard rating values, and turn-on inrush currents and other characteristics of the particular design all factoring into it.

So my basic intention is to provide food for thought, rather than advocacy. Although per my various posts on the subject I would not consider it to be an unreasonable course of action for someone who wants to try SR fuses to choose values that are one or even two increments higher than stock, and in the end perhaps avoid wasting several hundred dollars as a result. I respect the fact that your opinion differs, and as I said earlier, given the lack of meaningful technical data on the SR fuses I don’t think anyone can provide an answer to this question with certainty.

Regards,
-- Al