fuses - the $39 ones or the 85 cent ones

About two weeks ago, I finally got around to cleaning the fuse in my Wadia 581se cd/sacd player, which has a Great Northern Sound Statement upgrade. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a HiFi fuse. I called Steve @ GNS and he said that it makes a nice addition to his upgrade. Because of this, I bought a HiFi fuse for my preamp. It has been in the preamp for two days now and the results are all positive. Better clarity, high frequency extension, texture, bass and sense of space. Stan

How can a fuse influence noise / ripple ??

Pubul57, I DO think that 39$ is germain to this discussion.
That hi-end is hi-priced is NO joke. I've got a fortune in this stuff. When a 3500$ integrated is shipped, and the company says....(not direct quote) that the piece would be better with a different power cord.... That personally strikes me as kind of scruffy. I lack for the correct word.
Fuses, even 'cost no object' are impossible to price at 39$ with nothing but anecdotal evidence. Many people still think that Mercedes is the be all / end all of the automotive world but statistics...IE, real data, simply do not support that contention. Many other cars have a lower failure/defect rate, but lack the Cachet of the MB label.
My boss at work is fond of saying, and has a poster on his wall.....'Show Me The Data'. I have 30+ years experience in my technical field, and am considered a resource / expert, having trained many degreed engineers and other technicians.
BUT, I still must produce at least a modicum of evidence to support some of the nuttier things I come up with. After further testing and qualification (NOT DBT) some ideas are validated, some arent'.
Just like Mac used to do with the speaker wire tester, showing that the only speaker wire people could reliable tell from others was a 50ft length of 16ga or 18ga.
The boutique speaker wire guys pretty much put an end to that line.
Maybe one day, I'll sit down with a couple fingers of Chivas and have somebody change some fuses for me....or not!
I'll try to tell if the new unit is installed...or not.
I'll even get a couple buddies over for the listening. I'm not going to hold my breath. I may just change my 4A maggie fuses to the ceramics.
Like Chicken Soup......'Couldn't hurt'...............

If one is going to replace their power cord and buy gold fuses, it seems that this is all for naught without replacing the romex from the outlet to the panel. You have 1.5 inches of fuse and 50 feet of romex. As to the ripple theory, if we are talking about a line fuse where does the ripple come into play - you don't have ripple on the line voltage, or, another way to put it is, all the ac waveform is is ripple. If the fuse is past the bridge how is that contributing to additional ripple. If the fuse is somewhere down the path on the rails a higher resistance caused by the inexpensive fuses (which I do not think is true) would tend to reduce ripple rather than increase the ripple as the load current would be further limited.

If one is going to replace their power cord and buy gold fuses, it seems that this is all for naught without replacing the Romex from the outlet to the panel.

By that logic, there should be no need for high quality copper wire and good parts when the utility company uses common aluminum for the high tension lines in the alley that supply our system.

You need to think about the fuse as the weak link in the AC chain rather than picking at the Romex or AC cable.

Yes, changing the Romex to 6, 9's large gauge copper would probably benefit the system but so does the AC cord and fuse, with or without the Romex swap.

When I raced cars there were people who argued that this cam and gear combo would not work and then got their ass beat at the end of the track. Sometimes you just have to get your hands dirty and try things to prove it works.

By the way, the word "Romex" is a brand name, like "Kleenex".