We Need A Separate Forum for Fuses

wolf_garcia
Tubes contain enough components in their makeup to display tonal differences in a somewhat obvious, and generally explainable way…fuses, even with all of the back and forth conversation including accolades for the "magic" high end versions, claims of sonic differences between these things, and hyperbolic exaggeration from "fusers" claiming amazement at the resulting sonic nirvana provided by fuse replacement, have left one item off the plate in this entire dialog: Why do expensive "audiophile" replacement fuses, when used with any component anywhere, do anything other than act as a fuse?

>>>>I’m afraid I have to disagree with you on your theory, Wolfman. My experience is different. Totally different. I find tubes to be rather mysterious inasmuch as no one seems to have been able to figure out why the NOS wartime tubes sound so great. Some of the mystery is very low noise.  In some cases you can reverse engineer them but by and large they are a complete mystery. They can’t be copied. If they could figure it out they could reproduce them, but they can’t. The other thing is that when you settle in on your favorite tubes, whatever they might be, probably NOS wartime tubes, using Herbies tube dampers improves their performance considerably. Of course the fuse thing is SO obvious. It’s your word against 70,000. Hel-loo!

@geoffkait 
It was Brent Jessee (of audiotues.com) who told me the IAEA banned the use of certain metals used in NOS tubes for fear of who could get their hands on them for nefarious purposes (like building illicit nukes). After that, they never sounded the same, no matter how exacting they made them. 

All the best,
Nonoise

Al, cogent thoughts, as usual, and with cordiality. I wish all discussion on Agon was like this. 

My statement was intentionally hyperbolic. However, I do not believe - at least I have never encountered in 12 years of reviewing dozens of components of a wide variey, and building literally hundreds of systems - there exists any HiFi component which is absolutely insensitive to cabling. I suspect the same is true of fuses. I have no reason to doubt it, and hopefully with time I will have a tremendous amount of experience to either correct or affirm my guess. 

My point is that if sensitivity to external hardware was so low, the component would be awful. My evidence is the dozens of components which vary in sensitivity to external gear, as you have explained, yet every single one is easily influenced by cabling. 

I really need to get some more fuses and push this through. I'm smart enough to know that if one or two more fuses produce a mediocre to nil effect, I'm wrong and they are a complete crap shoot. I'm also smart enough to know that if four or five unique, random systems with aftermarket fuses produce efficacious results, then the odds diminish rapidly that aftermarket fuse benefit is system dependent. 

nonoise
@geoffkait
It was Brent Jessee (of audiotues.com) who told me the IAEA banned the use of certain metals used in NOS tubes for fear of who could get their hands on them for nefarious purposes (like building illicit nukes). After that, they never sounded the same, no matter how exacting they made them.

>>>>Of course by banning them they alerted the bad guys to the specific metals they needed to obtain. Or is it Top Secret? And if so how did Brent Jessee find out? Furthermore, there’s much more to constructing a nuke than obtaining some obscure metals. And if the Government was smart they’d announce they banned metals that actually weren’t needed to make a nuke. Hel-loo! In addition, the construction of how to make a nuke is pretty well explained in a number of public sources like, you know, the book by Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Hel-loo!

@geoffkait 
It was more of a short generalization when he told me after I asked him why NOS were better. I would assume that way back then, simply banning certain metals was the way to go. There were no announcements, just the restrictions that went over the public's head, unless you were in the business of using said metals. Brent, being in the business, most likely came across the info like anyone else with the resources and desire to know since it affected him.

As for the public sources, there was the occasional book in the library that had that info on making your own bomb but it was nothing like today, with the internet. You had to seriously source the material.

All the best,
Nonoise