Replies on fuses and SQ on this thread fall into these categories: 1. It makes absolutely no audible difference what fuse you use 2. I think I've heard minor differences 3. Absolutely no question -audiophile fuses make a major and revolutionary improvement So I'm not sure that the thread topic has moved forward at all.
Here is a list of fuses I have tried. 1) Create audio 2 ) AMR 3 ) Aucharm 4 ) Aucharm nano injected 5 ) HiFi silver star 6 ) HiFi supreme 7 ) Furutech 8 ) Acme silver 9 ) SR orange 10 ) SR purple All the fuses made a noticeable difference. I have them listed in order as I tried them. The last 4 of them were the best I tried. The Furutech had the longest burn in. Has of now the SR purple fuse has made a unbelievable impact on my system. But as you can see I have rolled a lot of different fuses over the years. So if anyone is wanting to try out a fuse that's inexpensive and does a nice job, try the Acme fuse. Now if you want to shot for the moon try the purple fuse. It even has a 30 day refund policy.
@Weber, I'm curious how you evaluate a fuse. Do you listen to the same music over and over? Do you put the fuse in and just live with it? When you install a fuse and turn on the piece of gear, is the difference immediately noticeable, or does it hit you over a week or so? Your profile says you are listening in a 24x18 room. Is this room acoustically treated?
Yes my room has treatment. Lots of it in the right places. At least it is for now. It was a pain in the butt setting up the room treatment. How I evaluate the fuses, I listen for the 1st hint of noticeable difference. Then I listen to how it makes the sound quality blossom at least 100 hrs of use. The Furutech fuse I had in my system for 500 hrs. It never did impress me in the bottom end. Right now I'm using the SR purple fuses. In my cdt and dac they have around 250 hrs on the fuses now. The purple fuse in my amp has around 100 hrs on it. So I would say the fuses in the cdt and dac are burned in. These SR purple fuses are havung a unbelievable impact on the sound quality of my system. I have not moved any of the room treatment panels yet. It wouldn't be a fair test if I changed anything else while I'm using the purple fuses.
Thanks for the response. Please indulge me for a little clarification because I don't understand the process which allows me to hear these changes a fuse makes. What does 250 hours on the fuse mean? Do the you mean the unit has been powered on for 250 hours, or playing music for 250 hours? My system plays music probably 20 hours a week. At this rate it'll take 3 months of listening to get the fuses burned in. When you say noticeable difference, are you listening to a certain set of songs, or just music in general? If you wait for 100-250 hours and hear an unbelievable impact, you sir have a phenomenal sonic memory.
When evaluating a power fuse over such a long period of time, weeks, months, etc., how do we know it's the fuse, not the power or environmental conditions? Power changes overtime, minutes. V +/- a few % Frequency a few 0.01 Hz THD varies with time of day and load A lot of variables of significant impact 10 minute data points
That's why I love this place. Grown up men talking very seriously about burn in of fuses of all things. You guys give audiophilia a bad name, but I dig it. Find a thing that really interests you and turn it into something totally bizarre and nonsensical. Great entertainment!
I should of said I'm retired now. I don't watch TV except the news for 1 hour a day. I listen to my music at least 8 hours a day. It's my new job for the last year. I remember my cds like people remember TV shows.
This is the only technical info on the purple fuses. "It was not until we finalized two new technologies, namely a three-stage long duration high voltage conditioning process and a brand new UEF compound featuring Graphene, that we were able to beat the Orange Fuse significantly" He pulled the UEF acronym out of his azz as far as fuses. Three-stage long duration high voltage conditioning process? He does not respond to any scientific questions behind any of his drivel (nor is it discussed other than the above). I wonder why. Blahblahblah...
As I agree 100% with this from @lobo, I'm going to try and stay out of this thread. Otherwise, I feel I'm kinda trolling @Weber.
The fuse/fuse holder interfaces will degrade with use/time, that is fact. I want to understand fuse burn-in (and cable burn-in) and am all ears, thanks.
Burn in got me thinking. Is it a linear constant change> Does it ever stop? Do you reach a certain point of "best" performance and then have decrease in performance? How do you know when you are burned in and not burned out?
I'm struggling to understand any possible physics behind burn-in. Since the electrons, in response to the AC signal, only shuffle back and forth about a mean position by the thickness of a human hair (or much less), it is kind of hard to understand what burn in is. Where there is a possibility is at the interface - at a connector, or a fuse socket etc. Since they are in close, very close proximity, any fractional hair's width electron shuffle at that interface could be important. So burn-in might be nothing more that the connector interface settling down. I'm feeling a bit like Timind, and minded to keep out of the thread from now. No guarantees, mind
Personally I would not trust my ears to accurately make statements about difference in fuses. Even without changing anything at all in the equipment my hifi sounds a little bit (but just a little) different every day. I believe it's mood/chemistry/weather/etc dependant. I believe some hours of the day there is a drastically different current draw/fluctuation in power in the apartment building that I really feel it's very different to listen to music at say 17.00PM (5pm) to say 23.00PM (11pm). And humidity, temperature and again... mood... will alter it all again, and again. Fair game if you have a situation where the fuse change/game alters things so drastically. Each to their own of course. For me... if we add a new house plant for example I'll for sure be sitting there and wondering if it's changed anything in sound.. not really knowing if it did. Choosing the right speakers for the room was my Big revelation. Even changing to bi-wire (you're welcome.. popcorn eaters) was subtle (but positive) in change. I wonder if I will ever have 1000s of hours to listen out for sound changes in different fuses. Then again... this pandemic...