Something For The Fuse Guys ...

mitch2,

You forgot cryogenic treatment and the “heat treatment” for directionality, whatever that is. to whit,

“X Fuse fuses are directional. Their directionality must be set after 12 hours of heating by reversing the fuse in a socket. After the direction is set, the fuse is going to “adjust” for about 50 hours.”

You said, “other than the conductor and silver plated end caps.” Only the conductor and end caps? That’s gold, Jerry, gold! 🤗

Interesting comment below on copper wire used as the fusing element for low amperage (i.e., most audiophile) fuses.  I also find the use of "silver-plated copper" as stated for the X Fuse interesting since it seems the plating thickness and overall thickness of the plated wire would both have to be consistent to maintain fusing within a suitable range of the rated value.
On copper fuse wire:

Copper wire suffers from the drawbacks that it operates at a rather high temperature if a reasonably low fusing factor is desired. There is thus a tendency for the wire to overheat with the result that its cross-sectional area and fusing current are gradually reduced, and premature melting of the wire may occur.

Do any audiophile fuses use 100% copper conductive elements? One wonders.

“HiFi Tuning has long been a fan of Germany’s legendary Mundorf capacitors. Revered in audiophile circles for creating gorgeous sounding no-compromise capacitors which grace some of the world’s best electronic designs, Mundorf capacitors are built using a special conductive material. Ultra-pure silver is impregnated with gold creating a material with gobs of resolution and golden warmth; glorious tonal color with truly outstanding dynamic shading, essentially the best of both gold and silver and absolutely no compromise. Each Supreme fuse uses this special material for its end-caps and conductive filament and pure silver solder connects everything. Inside the ceramic casing, Supreme fuses further distinguish themselves by receiving proprietary resonance and quantum treatments.”

Again, fuses do not provide, and simply are not designed to provide any sonic effect (except that imagined by imaginations) other that shutting down the proceeds by melting. It's simply a tiny wire whose "directionality" is utterly rendered irrelevant by my previously described internal wire direction chaos in components. No matter what one does to a fuse...fill it with sand, polish it, coat it with silver, freeze it, bombard it with magic, try "1,000,000 volt multi-stage, high-frequency conditioning process," or a "2nd Stage Rev. 2.0 Molecular realignment process" and whatever pours forth from the ever fertile minds of the snakes who run these companies, a fuse will merely be a fuse.

Fuses by their very electrical and molecular nature, and how that interaction happens with respect to the audio equipment..well.. fuses definitely ~DO~ alter the sonic signature of a piece of audio gear.

Anyone who touts being a professional in the associated fields...and is confused about that ...should get their engineering or professional papers yanked due to dangerous levels of ignorance and incompetence.

Go talk with the companies that make the fuses. They'll explain to you how wrong you are. I'm talking Cooper-Bussman, Schurter, SOC of Japan, you name them. Go talk with their engineers and they'll be totally confused about how ignorant you are...and why are you bringing this to them?

As for directionality..well... within a year or less, dude, you’ll be eating those words.

Big time.

I read the physics journals every day, and lately they’ve been issuing the cutting edge work that cuts the naysayers to pieces.

But I don’t expect you to be around to eat it.

In my experience...the naysayers always cut and run when proven wrong.