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Direction of aftermarket fuses (only for believers!)

It is with reluctance that I start another thread on this topic with the ONLY GOAL for believers to share their experience about aftermarket fuses.
To others: you can call us snobs, emperors w/o clothes,... etc but I hope you refrain posting just your opinion here. If you did not hear any difference, great, maybe there isn’t.

The main driver for this new post is that I am starting a project to mod my NAD M25 7 ch amp for my home theater. It has 19 fuses (2 per channel, 4 on the power supply board, 1 main AC) and I will try a mix of AMR Gold, SR Black and Audio Magic Platinum (anyway that is the plan, I may try out some other brands/models). As it is reasonably difficult to change them, esp the ones on each channel module that requires complete disassembly, I would like to know what the direction is for these models mentioned and of course, others who HAVE HEARD there is a difference please share your experience on any fuse model you have tried.

Fuses are IME directional:
Isoclean is one of the first to indicate the direction (2008/2009) on their fuses. Users of HiFi Tuning (when the awareness rose quite a bit amongst audiophiles) have mostly heard the difference.

As an IEEE engineer, I was highly skeptical of cabling decades ago (I like the speaker design of John Dunlavy but he said on many occasions that cables nor footers matter at all, WRONG!). Luckily, my curiosity proved me wrong as well. I see the same skepticism that I and many others had about the need for aftermarket cables many, many years ago now on fuses and esp on the direction on fuses.

Another example is the direction of capacitors (I do not mean electrolytic types). Even some manufacturers now and certainly many in the past did not believe it can make a difference sonically. Maybe some do but it takes time in the assembly to sort and put them in the right direction/order (esp as some of the cap manufacturers still do not indicate "polarity") so that maybe is one argument why this is not universally implemented.








128x128jazzonthehudson

Showing 4 responses by charles1dad

charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
Jazz,
I'm can appreciate your efforts for specific information about fuse direction. My experience with the SR Red  and Black fuses is they generally go in the direction of the writing. I would still suggest reversing direction as there always seems to be individual component exceptions. Without exception so far I hear noticeable differences in sound based on direction. I trust what I hear and leave the bickering for those so inclined. 
Jazz I'm glad you recognize that Al isn't an agitator who just wants to stir things up. 
Charles, 
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
Hello Mapman,
The lettering on the Synergistic Research fuse reads the standard left to right direction. In my DAC the fuse holder is orientated L to R.  In my Coincident components the  fuse is inserted into the rear fuse holder in a back to front orientation.  So the lettering is read as first letter begins at the component rear and last letter towards the front of the component.
Charles, 
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
Geoff,
I didn't intend to imply that the SR fuse lettering suggested current flow,  rather that this is the orientation providing the best sound quality consistently in my components. 
Charles, 
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,236 posts
 
Hi Jazz,
It's very possible that there could be some degree of marketing hype involved,  it wouldn't be the first time for an audio product. That's why I try to keep it simple,  I just listen to a product and form an impression based solely on what I hear. 
Charles, 
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