fuses - the $39 ones or the 85 cent ones

Magfan, Timrhu, and Pubul57, I will not go through all of the DBT stuff again, but if others do not accept your measure of "sounding better" you can hardly prove anything by using it even were you to use the best experimental procedures. Secondly, no body needs to "prove" anything to you. You are not authorities in the Scam Police. Finally, Magfan in particular seems to react in envy. Just because you cannot yet afford better fuses doesn't mean that you are right that they cannot work or are too expensive for what they do.

Years ago I participated in DBTs at CES, run I think by Stereophile, I had difficulty telling whether our brief listening to an amp was the same amp or a different one. Afterwards, with the amps still hidden I could clearly hear a difference. What would you conclude? One, the brief listening or the same/different task is not the same as what sounds better. Or two, there was no difference in the amps but somehow despite the screen, I was getting clues a to what I preferred. I certainly did not conclude that it didn't matter which amp I bought. If you would embarrass that, fine but don't bother me.

I have consistently found improvement using the IsoClean fuses more so than the Hi-Fi Tuning fuses. Sometimes this is substantial. In my experience I would recommend them to others, but I guarantee nothing. YMMV.

At a recent Stereophile show they had working groups. In one of these, in the first session (early morning), the speaker said that very few folks were able to tell if they were listening to a 30 watt tube amp, or a 200 Watt, 1980s, Denon amp. I'm not sure what that proves, but I found it a bit suprising. In our session, the second session, it did seem that 80% of us were able to tell the which was which almost all the time - it seemed pretty obvious, but that from the bass perfromance, in the midrange it was very, very similar. You would have expected drastic, obvious differences, in the blind test, they were not.

Everyone likes to talk about double blind audio, compared to clinical drug testing. The big difference, the drug effect is tested long term, not one pill one day and another pill the next.

Perhaps the reason Tbg and I are so against DBT is because humans don't work well in an environment of continually changing equipment. That's a poor way to decide about long term enjoyment and it's certainly no way to music.

What if you spent 10 minutes in your local classical music hall in a front row seat, then were moved to dress circle for 10 minutes then to the back of the hall for 10 minutes. How do you think you would describe the content of the performance that day?

Lets forget about this silly DBT stuff, it's outlawed over at Audio Asylum because it's invalid for deciding about music. That's one area where they are clearly superior to Audiogon.

Albert, I don't support outlawing it although I think it is worthless. I think many are really insincere in advocating it, in that they would not pay any attention unless it supported their belief that there are no differences. I am always curious about how these people buy a system. It seems to me that they should only shop at Radio Shack and never make additional purchases.

How would you prove that changing fuses make no difference at all? Or is this really beyond proof. What you are left with is many who hear no difference, and those who claim the differences are noticeable and worthwhile. Of course there are many peieces (amps, preamps, cables, speakers, etc) where it is somewhat easy to explain on technical grounds why you should, and most do hear a difference (most seem obvious) and there this a range of tweeks with technical explanations of dubious merit (I would rely on an audio engineer to tell me about the techincal side of this since I have no technical training); though I grant there maybe be things that we don't even know how to (or that we should)measure which remain, nevertheless very real in how they affect a system. It does seem hard to beleive DBT is of absolutely no value - but maybe it is. I easily hear differences between components and do believe that there are differences. I don't pretend to understand the techincal reasons why a fuse should or should not make a difference in the sound of an amp, I only know I don't hear a difference (though I would like to)and that when I asked three amp designers, who do beleive in differences from circuit design, capacitors, power supplies, tubes, etc, don't beleive in the "fuse" theory. Some things make a difference, some don't, but it seems pretty hard to prove something doesn't make a difference.