THE LATEST---Gold plated fuses?

Uppermidfi: Yes, i do believe that cleaning contacts, especially in critical areas, can make an audible difference. As such, simply pulling a fuse, cleaning all of the associated contacts and then re-inserting that same fuse could quite possibly improve signal transfer / lower distortion.

I will also add that using materials that are more conducive to better signal flow / higher levels of conductivity could improve the sonics of a system. As such, the use of gold, silver, copper, etc... where a lower grade of material was previously being used could improve the situation.

Given that most connections become resistive over time due to oxidation, and that resistance / conductivity can vary as frequency is altered, i would first worry about having clean connections and then worry about what those connections were made with. I'm guessing that most people will notice more of a difference from having clean connections than they will from having a different type of conductor used for the connection itself. Think of the improved conductivity of silver, copper, gold, etc.. being more icing on the cake i.e. the clean connection makes for the good tasting cake to begin with. Sean
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PS... Fuses are designed to make / break a connection and are ALWAYS inferior to a direct path. The direct connection approach may sound best, but offers no form of protection should something go wrong.

Sean is back from the dead thus I welcome " Sean of The Dead " back to the gon . We need you man .

Sean...The contact resistance of a fuse, even if there is a bit of corrosion, will be trivial compared with the speaker cable, and, in the case of a tweeter, the padding resistor of the crossover network. I am more concerned with the fact that some corrosion products can have diode characteristics which seem more likely to affect the sound.

By the way, your kind loan of Nordost cables caused me to lose faith in Home Depot's finest, and I got lazy and bought some short Goertz cables to go with my five new CI D-200 monoblock amps. Sounds very good, but I don't know if it's the amp or the cables.

Eldartford, It seems like the issue with the fuse, and the importance of it, is where it is located in the signal path. At that point a tiny change will be magnified to a huge issue by the time it reaches the speaker cable.

Despite my skepticism, this thread caused me to try one of the HiFi Tuning fuses. I don't really want to admit this, but I hear a slight difference. I replaced the stock AC line fuse in my McCormack DNA-125 Platinum, and found swith the gold-plated fuse the upper midrange was pulled forward, and the midrange and treble areas became lighter and gained some air. My best guess is faster decay is the cause of this. I'm not sure I like this change; my speakers use the Scanspeak Revelator 9700 tweeter and those things can singe every hair on your body if you're not careful. ;)

I've only listened for an hour or so with the HiFi Tuning fuse in, but once I've really spent some time with it I'll post more thoughts.

For now, I'd say it's like a cable change; whether you like the change is entirely up to your listening taste and your equipment.

The jury's still out for me, but I'll say this: no way am I buying another 6 of these buggers to replace all the stock fuses in my amp. Not happening - even if they were the same price as my stock fuses.

As a sanity check, I plan to put my Seiko watch on top of my CD player next time I get to listen. If I hear another change I'll check myself in to the loony bin, and my wife will write you all a note to serve as a cautionary tale. :)

Howard