Fuse Direction for Pass Labs Amp and Preamp


I am going to re fuse my Pass X250.8 and XP-32 with Synergistic Research purple fuses in a couple of days. I was hoping to get advice on a rule of thumb for direction of the fuses. My instinct tells me to start by installing the fuse by the direction of the lettering on the fuses. I am thinking that the direction should be the lettering left to right with the beginning of the lettering facing out of the amp and the end of the lettering facing into the amp. Does this sound right?

128x128mitchb

Showing 8 responses by nonoise

Would it be fair to say (or infer) that some of these boutique fuses are somewhere along the arc between a bog standard fuse and those FNM fuses? That they are definitely a step up but still nowhere near a FNM fuse? That could be why we hear a difference: they're simply a better made fuse, kinda like what you got with the FNMs. Just saying..

All the best,
Nonoise

@nglazer 

Thanks for bringing to my attention that there's a fuse in the tuner, which I've overlooked all these years. Now I have something to look into..

All the best,
Nonoise

Hello @barts 

I've accumulated about 5 different brands of low cost, aftermarket fuses (I'd never pay what SR charges, but that's just me) and in my Marantz PM-15S2 and SA-15S2 SACD player there was a distinct difference with all of them, directionally and in comparison to the bog standard ones. With my Kinki EX-M1, I could hardly tell the difference so I kept in the standard fuse that came with it. 

The "sound" when in the wrong direction always rolled off the highs, muted ambience, and gave an out of phase shading to the sound making it harder to locate placement on the soundstage, or kind of a slight blur. If one didn't know, they'd be content with the sound and attribute it to some house sound (like warmth or richness). In the proper direction, everything snaps into place, the highs extend more and ambience is restored, along with better definition and detail. That's been my experience with every fuse I've tried with the Marantz gear, but not the Kinki.

All the best,
Nonoise

It didn't take long before the trolls, name dropping and appeals to authority came up. They make very poor substitutes for actually trying them. 

All the best,
Nonoise

This is living proof of zombie threads coming back to life. Just try it both ways as there are no shortcuts and if and when you hear a difference, go with the way that sounds best to you.

All the best,
Nonoise