Fuse or braker for dedicated lines?

Provided that you do not use magnetic breakers (and I very much doubt that you would, unless you are thinking of installing your system in an airplane), neither breakers nor fuses should create any problems. I replaced my breaker when I created a dedicated circuit, but really I did so only because I thought there might be some corrosion or crud inside the breaker that could cause current limiting.

Any contribution to noise from a breaker or fuse would be miniscule compared to the crap that seeps in from computers, microwave ovens, cell phones, and the like. Any creditable power conditioner will sop it up without difficulty.

Good luck!

Audiophiles are funny people, Worldcup, as you will learn in short order if you hang out here very much. I recently had a man tell me with absolute seriousness that when he painted his listening room a different color it changed the sound coming out of his speakers. Not his perceptions but the actual character of the sound, itself. So it shouldn't surprise you that someone perceives differences when he changes the material of the fuse bases. Hell, a guy said awhile back on another site that one should never frame the art in one's listening room with metal because it would "create diffraction patterns in the electromagnetic force fields" and "utterly destroy your sound."

Funny, funny people....

Gentlemen, gentlemen, let us calm ourselves. CFB and Bob are reading quite a little bit into what I said. It is true that I haven't been here a long time and it is true that I failed to understand that worldcup HAS been here a long time. But you folks apparently haven't been listening to the consistent thread that has run through nearly all my posts on the topic of what one can hear and what one cannot hear. So let me say it again and maybe it will be more clear this time....

IF YOU CAN HEAR A DIFFERENCE, AND YOU LIKE THE DIFFERENCE, AND YOU CAN AFFORD THE DIFFERENCE, GO FOR IT.

Dear me, I've been saying that for at least thirty years and it seems so obvious that it shouldn't have needed saying in the first place.

My point--which I think was fairly clear, actually--is that the continuum of audio opinion runs the gamut from "all amplifiers sound alike" to "having a metal frame around a picture in your listening room can make your system unlistenable." The vast majority of audio enthusiasts would discount both those points of view, but the the folks who believe them believe them, who are we to naysay?

I will note that it gets a bit tedious when the same voices again and again rise in hasty and often ill-considered defense of people who DO hear differences but discount or dismiss those who do not. Sheesh! Is a full range of opinions not permitted here?

One last time: If brother bundus experiences differences in sound when the fuse bases are glass rather than ceramic, that's his business and others may profit from his opinions or dismiss them, as they see fit. If someone else says they do NOT hear such a difference, that individual is entitled to the same courtesy. And then there are those who wonder if the internal construction and materials of the fuses with different insulators might not differ also...and of such is interesting conversation made.

But listening to people rant is NOT interesting.

This isn't cancer surgery, folks, it is a hobby. Lighten up. Have fun.

Will

I have not done direct comparisons between glass-insulator and ceramic-insulator fuses. I have listened extensively to the same system running through fuses and through breakers and have never noted a difference but haven't done ABX comparisons, which I think would be discounted by the folks who are chiding me, anyway....

I have a considerable concern about the use of magnetic circuit breakers because they have a built in inductor through which the power passes on its way to the outlets. The chance of that being an issue is small, though, because magnetic CBs are rarely if ever used in domestic wiring.

With respect to causality of perceived sonic differences with varying insulator materials, I'd be as much or more concerned about the internal construction of the circuit pathway and the materials used therin. So far as I know, there is no easy way, short of dissecting and bench-testing several brands of fuses, to know if the ONLY difference between the fuses was the insulating material. That point being made, even various brands of ceramic or glass fuses might have different innards. My suggestion would be to get as wide a variety of fuses as possible and test them and choose the one that sounds best. Pretty simple.

Now, as to the tone of my post. As I noted in a private email to cfb, I do have a wicked sense of humor. I have no intention of abandoning it but perhaps it will be easier to tolerate if you realize that (1) I am just as willing to turn that sense of humor on people in my own camp as on people in other camps and (2) I am not given to taking offense when people poke fun at me. I do, however, take offense when people tell me to shut up or, in cfb's case, to take my finger off the submit key.

Finally, my point in that post was that there exists a continuum of opinions about the sonic effects of various components, cables, tweaks, et alia. For example, in the current issue of $ensible Sound, one of the reviewers says that all amplifiers sound alike. Sheesh! Does he have any ears at all? On the other hand, a fellow opined to me the other day that hanging a picture in one's listening room that happened to be framed in metal would "render the sound utterly unlistenable." I reserve the right to sound both bemused and, yes, possibly condescending about such extreme opinions. As to the rest of us who fall somewhere in the middle, my position remains unchanged:

IF YOU PERCEIVE A DIFFERENCE IN THE SOUND, AND YOU LIKE THE DIFFERENCE THAT YOU PERCEIVE, AND YOU CAN AFFORD TO MAKE THE CHANGE, THEN DO IT.

And for goodness sake lighten up. We're supposed to be doing this because it is fun.

Willie