McIntosh fuse changeout to make better sound

@jhills, I never claimed a startling difference and I’ve never advocated spending $147 on a fuse. What I have heard are more akin to tonal shifts, attenuated highs, an out of phase characteristic to the sound, etc. They were, however, significant enough that I kept on researching (something most audiophiles do) until I found the best fuse for my needs, never having to spend more than about $50 bucks per fuse.

And, again, if a fuse’s job is just to protect and has no effect on the sound, then some small speck or mote on the contacts wouldn’t have an effect on the sound. Either the fuse works or it fails, by design, and stops any current.

If that speck or mote has an effect on the sound, then a fuse with much better conductivity would, as well. Both ways argue better conductivity.

All I can and will say, from now on, is: until you try it for yourself, you’re arguing in bad faith.

All the best,
Nonoise

WOW millercarbon - sorry to bruise your tender ego.

Still, I’ll stick with the opinions and sound advise of those on here who actually build audio components (not $5K IC cables and power cords or $150.00 fuses and outlet covers) and the opinions of those who spent their lives in the studios and stages to make and produce the music we enjoy....Jim

Better conductivity is not a guaranteed path to better sound. Consistent conductivity may be.

+1audio2design

Clean, new common fuses in a pair of monoblock tube amps made a subtle improvement.   Synergistic Research Red, Black and Blue (haven't tried the Orange) fuses made/make a HUGE difference.  So much so, that the amp designer who detests tweaks, was awestruck and replaced the fuse holders with 5 amp breakers.  Now his amps and mine sound very, very similar.  The only tweak he approved of was removing the fuse itself.  The reason I didn't do the same is that his breakers are NOS and may not be effective in case of fault.  I also have an SR blue fuse on my moded Dynaco ST70 to great improvement.

Another friend and I have tried an SR blue fuse on our EAR 864 preamps (not in my main system).  Nope, sounds worse than the fuse that came with it.  The EAR 890 amp also sounds great (5% difference between it and my custom monoblocks) using the fuse that came with it as well.  

My conclusion is that upgraded fuse changes are not always sonically effective.  When they are effective, they can be a tremendous  improvement in sound despite their "unreasonable" cost.   

I use Stillpoints for most of my equipment (Dyanco, monoblock amps, CD Transport, Pre-amp, phono amp, Bryston BIT20 isolation transformer, Blu-ray player).  However, they don't make my COS DAC D2V or EAR 890 sound better (actually worse).  Why, I don't know for certain.  I do know that the DAC was designed with superior vibration isolation characteristics.