Fuses fuses fuses

What possible financial motive would Audioquest have in promoting cable and wire directionality?

Cables can be built in such a way that they can be directional. The classic from of this is of course an interconnect with XLR terminations. It can only be plugged in one way.

But RCA cables can be built so that the shield is only tied at one end. Often this type of cable can express a directionality depending on how well the equipment in the system is grounded.

So there is a very practical reason for Audioquest to promote such a thing; hard to say if its financial but that is your speculation not mine.

Now let's entertain for a moment that raw wire and fuses are directional. Let's further say that you put them all in the same orientation in the equipment. The result would be high distortion, as the wire and fuse(s) would act like a diode, and thus rectify the audio signal. This is one way in which fuzzboxes (an electric guitar effect pedal) operate.  Fuzzboxes are called that because of the sort of distortion they make.

As you can see, in the right hands a fuzzbox can really be a nice effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgqVHQITciY

But it does not work for hifi even though it sounds cool on a guitar. Its exactly the opposite of hifi: Distortion!

Now let's instead put all the wire and fuses in such a way that they are not all creating one series diode. In this case, the signal will still get rectified, only in a variety of different ways. This too will cause distortion.

Its pretty clear that most audiophiles would like to (and do) avoid that phenomena. To that end, non-directional wire and fuses should be sought out!  If you have the pesky kind that is directional, count on it to add distortion to whatever signal is flowing through it.

 

What I haven't learned Geoff is why does a "simple" AC fuse sell for 100.00? Yes, I have listened to SR red and black, oh there are differences for sure but for the money there are more substantive ways to spend in my estimation. I also experimented with a gold fuse years back in may Berning's amp, it was a gift from a fellow Berning owner, marginal improvement, I think. It retailed for 40.00. Haven't personally witnessed the directional cable phenomena but did experiment years back, didn't hear differences, Stereovox, Cardas, Harmonic Tech and I'm sure a few others, it's been a while. Reversing fuses? I'll pass, I have to draw the line somewhere otherwise I'd have too little time to do what drew me to this place to begin with. Agree concerning cryogenic treatment on wires AND tubes. So you see we don't disagree on everything. 

Thanks Al and Ralph for your explanations and for keeping it real. 

Atmosphere, if you’re pretending to be dense you’re doing an excellent job. Don’t you get it, we’ve already eliminated all of your cable directionality causes. It's the wire itself. Nobody said there aren't other issues like shielding. As the Audioquest dude said you have to be aware of al of them and deal with them, CONTROL them, accordingly. Capish?

@tubegroover 
I concur.
I feel that aftermarket fuse manufacturers are simply cashing in on the fuse upgrade mentality.
Are there differences-Yes. 
Are they worth the money-YMMV
B

All aftermarket fuses are not priced at $100. One is $175. So what? Don’t be a knucklehead. Some aftermarket fuses are much less? Some are $20, some are $5. So what? Of course price is not the subject of this thread. Who cares? Like anything else in the hobby prices vary. For anything you can name prices vary all over the place. So what? If you want to listen to cheap junk that’s your prerogative.