fuses - the $39 ones or the 85 cent ones

You do that, Dkzzz. They could probably use the laugh.

Krell already charges you at least an extra 50 bucks for fuses in their price anyway as they are WAY overpriced electronics in the first place, might as well get some that might be worth it then :-) Besides I think they just went out of business, I am sure the fuses are the ones that did them in...

If its all about feelings, head on and enjoy.
But, on the face of it a 39$ fuse? come'on, somebody is joking here.
Can you hear it? Who knows? Somebody who installs such a fuse than says they hear a change may just be fooling themselves. My car runs much better after being washed. And to change the DIRECTION of the fuse in the holder and expect to hear it? Nutty.

I would agree that specs are near-meaningless. I personally am very selective in my use or quoting of specs and than I use them as an 'advisory', not the law.

I would also disagree about it being about what other people hear. It is about what YOU hear.

I guess (know, really) that DBT is a real hi-end Hot Button issue. Nobody likes having there sacred cow gored. If someone hears a change made by new/changed (fill in blank) than more power to 'em. I personally won't try anything based on what a basically random selection of people say...as well intended as most are.
If 'subjectivity and anecdotal is the rule', how could you complain about the Bose lover? Straighten him out? NoCanDo, since he 'feels' this is the best.

And, as a final thought, it is difficult to PROVE anything with statistics. Most people don't understand this. If you set up such a test with a dozen 'golden eared' persons in an agreed upon reference system (I know.....million to 1 shot) and got a null result you could count on it. BUT, if even 1 of the listeners showed a statistically significant ability to distinguish that which was under test, than all bets are off. This guy DID hear something, even if it can't be measured.
In the early days of CD players, when the 1st '1-bit' stuff was coming out, there was a 3-way DBT. One of the listeners was spot on in his choices and way above chance. Of the remainder, another could tell one of the players out of the crowd, but couldn't distinguish the others reliably.
There is a place for DBT in hi-end.

What gives tweaks a bad name? I don't know...maybe it is the guy that plays the tones over the phone! or the rocks. or the cryo'd RCA connectors.

I hope this fuse of which you speak is not a line fuse. If it indeed a line fuse there is no reason to pay more than a couple of bucks max. The idea that a line fuse made out of gold will somehow improve the sound is ridiculous. What exactly do you think is the cause of this supposed improvement? If you cannot identify the cause of the improvement and somehow prove it (hopefully by application of mathematics like the rest of engineering principles are proven) then you are merely opening yourself up to countless scams. If the goldenn line fuse is going to improve the sound, then why would it not be equally important to keep the operating environment at very precise temperature and humidity levels - or install ferrite beads around all speaker cables and power conductors, or replace all soldered connections on your pcb's with silver solder, or better yet, build a faraday cage around your listening room. My point is that without having an explanation for these useless tweaks the only limitation is one's imagination, or more precisely, the imagination of the person proffiting by the sale. One reason that science is usefull is that it aids in making judicious choices. The proof of science is in the so called pudding. Space travel, digital computers, MRI's, cell phones, etc etc all are possible not through subective what ifs but through predictable outcomes arrived at via a scientific approach. It is not the case that we generally observe a phenomenon and then later explain it with mathematics but rather that the mathematics explain what is possible before the technology catches up.

Someone's been boning up on the Skeptics Handbook. and offering up the usual Strawman arguments.