Fuse upgrade

[jimbones]

I any one has stock fuses in their equipment I can share my experience with you.  I "tried" replacing the in line ac fuse (12A)  in my Aragon ( i was skeptical ). We'll at first I thought it made a difference akin to an interconnect change out. Well the more I listen I can say there's even more improvement than I originally thought. So much so that I am looking into changing out additional fuses I am using HiFi Tuning fuses.

[richidoo]

Seems that most people who try these claim an improvement, including some reasonable reviewers. The question for me is the value, whether the improvements are worth the price of the fuse. If I am using tube power amps I would be hesitant to use them because of the higher tendency to blow fuses when the tubes blow. But with quality tubes that should not be a big concern. Ii would not want to burn $50 fuses too often.


Thanks for sharing your experience Jim. What other components are you thinking about upgrading the fuses?

[rollo]

  Worked out for me as well. HiFi tuning fuse as well. Using in QOL and CDP so far. Synergistic Research fuses are worth a try as well. Some feel they are more neutral. I found the Hi Fi tuning fuse to be a tad colored to the warm side.
   Either or worth a try. SR offers a money back deal I believe.

charles

[jimbones]

Seems that most people who try these claim an improvement, including some reasonable reviewers. The question for me is the value, whether the improvements are worth the price of the fuse. If I am using tube power amps I would be hesitant to use them because of the higher tendency to blow fuses when the tubes blow. But with quality tubes that should not be a big concern. Ii would not want to burn $50 fuses too often.


Thanks for sharing your experience Jim. What other components are you thinking about upgrading the fuses?

I have tube preamp and SS poweramp. I still have the original fuses in my equipment since I purchased them 20-25 years ago. Never blown a fuse. I paid $60 for the fuses. I can say that it definitely is worth the price based on the improvement I got. I find that many audiophile will have no problem dropping 10 or 15K to eek out small improvements but are skeptical about spending small change. (Rich I am not directing this at you, I was skeptical and I just decided to give it a try and it worked for me.) Now there is no guarantee that I will get the same improvement from the preamp fuse. And Charles is correct that SR offers money back.

[richidoo]

I don't think people are worried about the price of a couple hundred for an upgrade, some people do that all the time. But there does seem to be a resistance to fuses (pun intended) as a  legit upgrade. Same as it was with speaker wires a few decades ago and jitter a few years ago.

The resistance of the fuse element doesn't have to be the same, but the burnout behavior has to be within the standardized fuse spec. Maybe a silver fuse, with thinner element will blow the same time, but the lower resistance of the metallurgy provides some unknown advantage. Aluminum is a halfway decent conuctor, it's what brings your utility power to your service meter. We have copper in our walls because we care much more about wasting electricity to resistance than the power company does, an we care about reducing heat in our walls. But those are measurable, practical concerns for using different conductor metal. But in the space of a fuse where the conductor gage is adjusted to net a similar resistance, it becomes so small of a difference that it is hard to imagine it could make such an audible difference.  

I once owned tube amps whose best sounding tubes were not great construction quality. When tubes blew they often took out fuses and sometimes worse so I had a stash of spare fuses and tubes until I finally gave up and sold the amps. But I was left with an unreasonable fear of expensive fuses.

My new SS integrated only needs one fuse, so it might be worth a try.

[jimbones]

I agree with your explanation, that's why I was skeptical about there being a "significant improvement". I am at the point where I am tweaking because I have reach a point where improvements in my system will cost at least several thousands of dollars. I have an SP8 preamp and Aragon 4004. If you think you may be in a situation where you will be blowing fuses I would be leary. What about your electronics other than the power amp? try it there first. YMMV but this is just my experience.

[richidoo]

My amp is only 15W, takes a 1.5A fuse, I think. Probably .5A in the DAC. Eventually I will try it but it's a bit down the list for me.

[DaveC]

I noticed an improvement with a fuse upgrade in my DAC, I built my preamp and it always used an upgraded fuse, and I used a circuit breaker in the amp I built. Based on what I heard from my DAC, I think upgraded fuses are worth trying.

[gopher]

If you hop on eBay the Create Audio/Synergy HiFi fuses can be had for ten bux shipped and seem to have made a nice difference in my DAC.  I've been meaning to order a few.more for my preamp and mono blocks.

[sleepyguy24]

Thanks Gopher for the lead on the Create Audio fuses. I had no idea fuses could be directional. I may have an easier time talking myself into a $10 fuse vs a $100 fuse. For me a lot of my gear is older and requires min 4 fuses. My Sumo 9 requires 5 fuses. When buying the more expensive fuses that can add up.

I've always been reluctant with the audiophile fuses. One thing that bothers me with some of the fuses that you can't see what  is in there internally. How do one know the manufacturer didn't take a plain old ceramic fuse dress it up but marketing behind it and mark it up?

I guess I'm a bit jaded from some bad experiences in the past. I had purchased some speaker cable and found that it was just dressed up Home Depot type 12 gauge speaker wire. All it had was vampire spades on one side and vampire banana plugs on the other. The cable was just wrapped in techflex and heat shrink.

I may try some of these fuses since some members here are having good results. Less BS here than on other forums.

One thing one audio tweaker told me was to thoroughly clean fuse ends and the fuse holders as best as you can. I've used metal polish first and a bit of elbow grease on the fuse ends and the holders. I then sprayed them with deoxit. Supposedly this will get you close to what an audiophile fuse provides. I don't know as I haven't tried audiophile fuses yet. I may try to AB later.

[tmazz]

Just got off the phone with a tech from ARC. He said that they have seen problems with the slo-blow versions of these "premium" fuses having time specs that fall outside of what is needed topotect the amp. Too fast and you can blow the $50 fuse unnecessqrily and too slow nd you can damage the amp. Of course this is only an issued of the unit you are using requires a slo-blow fuse, and it si only onbe man's opinon, but still it made me think twice.

[richidoo]

The Create Audio fuse looks like a ripoff to me.

Good point Tom. Safety first!

[tmazz]

The Create Audio fuse looks like a ripoff to me.

Good point Tom. Safety first!

Rich I am not willing to say that they are a ripoff for two reasons. 1) $5 does not seem like that exorbitant a price given the overheads associated with running a small business that sells to a limited boutique type market and 2) I have heard good reports on their sonic merits from people who i personally know and whose ears I trust.

But that said, if a fuse does not for whatever reason, provide protection it is not performing its primary mission, no matter how good it sounds. Keep in mind that the techs comments applies only to slo-blow and not standard fuses.

[richidoo]

I don't think that all upgrade fuses are ripoffs, just these Create Audio Luxury fuses. I think there is great potential for a precious metal fuse element and terminals, so I would sooner buy HiFi Tuning, Synergistic Research, SINE or AMR fuses. But if I'm gonna run a normal fuse, I'd rather use a real Bussman than a copy. If I wanted Bussman with gold or rhodium plated terminals I would buy those by name from the honest UK ebay seller, and not take a chance that the Chinese copy is as good as Bussman. Maybe Create is a genuine Bussman aluminum element fuse with gold plated ends and a voodoo spell (nano-alloy) but I'd still rather buy them from Mouser, or UK with gold.

[gopher]

What about the Create fuse strikes you as more of a ripoff then any of the other fuse offerings?  I haven't tried the higher priced ones, but in my experience it was just as good as the AMR fuses which are positively reviewed.

Whatever your stance/prejudices are, its ten bux.  May as well find our for yourself.  Worst case scenario you can speak from personal experience when you bash it...  best case you got a meaningful upgrade for very little money.