Have you ever spoken with a designer or audio engineer

geoffkait.
Amp designers are the worst,

well sure Power corrupts....absolute Power corrupts .....(all together now) Most posts here seem to centered around amplifiers ?

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from the Ross Walker interview

http://www.onethingaudio.webspace.virginmedia.com/FOR/QUA/GEN/9512-QUA-GEN-HIS-RW.htm

Do you try to appeal to the audiophile market?

"No. The audiophile is on an endless quest He wants change. He is not interested in something that is good enough to remain unchanged."

But if Quad is the best, shouldn’t he end up with Quad?

"But he wouldn’t be an audiophile; that would be the end of it. How dull it would be."

makes me smile every time I read it.

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Charles1dad-
Audio engineers and designers are not all cut from the same cloth. Some are rigid in their beliefs and feel the notion of tweaks or upgradeded parts and accessories are pure foolishnes and money wasted. Yet others who are just as talented and knowledgeable will openly encourage and embrace the merits of upgrading. They will tell you that different tubes, cables, capacitors, fuses, vibration control devices etc all make a difference. Just depends on who you are talking to.

Charles1dad - can you give an example of each please?

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Acman3
And then you have Japanese designers like Shindo, who through listening, consider every rca, capacitor type, volume control, and so on, to tailor a sound they want for each component, starting with their own power cord, and ending with specific brands of tubes.

wow ...all that work Acman3. Then their products get placed into rooms and spaces that all different dimensions, different gear, treatments, humidity and temp levels, audiophile mood levels, etc...

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taters......congratulations. perfect timing for all these posts.

On the first day of Audiophilia .....- my true love gave to me - Cheap audio cables....
On the second day....

So thinking about Audio Designers and Fuses this morning.
Yeah, a boring looking day but still no snow and we will hit double digits again today Celsius. Not cold so I will take it. Coffee starting to kick in..8^0

The guys on these fuse threads seem to be having a lot of fun. I like to have fun too. I want to ask them a couple of questions directly on those threads but I don’t dare; you see I have owned an amp that committed suicide due to a "no fuse" and "no protection" design years ago. My skepticism and doubt, I fear, will become too obvious so I will ask here instead in a third party kind of way. Disclosure. My career line of work is Business Continuity Planning. So I am I guess a little biased. Anyway it’s healthy to let it out.

1) Are the "fuse" effects some are hearing any different from moving your speakers in or out. Toe in-out, forward or back; or your listening chair back or forward?

2) Am I reading right ? Some are putting these fuses in a $20,000 70 lb amplifier still under warranty; which if it experiences a failure even with a cheap resistor, will need to be shipped across the country, and maybe even have to go through customs ?

(Re: Music Reference) You know I own two of Rogers amps. I guess this makes me a kind of fan. Over the years when I have contacted boutique amplifier makers near me about their product, I have had offers from some to bring their amps over for me to compare. But you know what; I think it was more for them to compare. I don’t dare ask Rogers’ permission to try this in one of my MR amps else risk his wrath. Mind you my RM9 has been so modified over the years.....still.

These are the fuses contained in the Music Reference amplifiers.

http://www.littelfuse.com/data/en/data_sheets/littelfuse_fuse_215_series.pdf

the Fuse thread Bdp24 referenced.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=ui1k9vdahb93345kn9urh39hd0&topic=105425.0

Roger Modjeski
Does anyone care that Tuning Fuses have no agency approvals or time/current curves? How do we know if these fuses will protect our equipment? They have already proven to have no protection in DC circuits where myself and many designers are protecting tubes directly. Have a look at the data from Littlefuse, the brand I use. They are approved by 10 significant agencies. I doubt Tuning Fuses could get any of these agency approvals. If indeed they provide inadequate protection then we might as well short out our fuse holders.

??

You know... I do know of this one guy; his system kit is hardwired from one end to the other including its branches - no fuses at all.

and then ....

there is this other amp I own - this big, heavy thing called Krell. It has no fuses the last time I looked. What’s up with that Dan D’Agostino?

How boring is that?

Bdp24......Roger Modjeski, apparently a polarizing figure here.....

:^)
I wonder why so polarizing ?
taken from Page 2 - RM10 owners manual - Roger’s design section.

My design career began at age 11 when I built my first 3 tube, class A single ended amplifier. I still have the thing that is capable of about 3 watts. Its description reads like a $5000 amplifier that the high-end magazines might cover today. Should I send it in for review ?

LOL - hah hah hah ...

Bdp24
There may be one---I’m sure Roger would prefer the owner of the Music Reference RM-9 that sent the amp in for repair (a result of the eight $49 Hi-Fi Tuning fuses the owner had installed on the output power tubes in the amp not performing as they should but don’t---the very reason for Roger’s warning about them) had spent spend the $400 ($400---on fuses?!) on more MR product rather than the fuses!

Regarding the discusses of any Axes to Grind in regards to these Fuses ?

I will say that those that understand to a certain level Roger’s past history; and it is easy to discover. Just read the RM10 owners manual design section; know that he is big into reliability, and can’t stand products that fail prematurely. Now everyone has button/s that if you push, cause a reaction. Someone defeating Roger’s amp’s design to cause failure may have been a button.

Ok now you guys made me pull out my RM10 manual again :^)

Some verbage from just pages 2 -3.

After installing my select brand of low noise resistors as applied in the critical sections of your rm10, the noise faded into oblivion. Many of the current audiophile resistors are chosen on the basis of their high price or exotic materials. Often by people who do not understand noise mechanisms. Their makers are often concerned with precision and other characteristics that non-audio related applications require . I have not found low noise to be one of them. Lesson two, expensive resistors are not always the best.

Around 1964 my interest and the industry’s turned to the new miracle transistors. I, in my basement shop, and the giants of the industry both did our best to design good sounding amplifiers with these new devices and we all failed.

When a 15 year old kid has to redesign flaws out of a professional product, something is wrong, or maybe something is right and is inspiring me to make better designs. I also had no idea at that time what a manufacturer had to go through to get a product out at a price with good service.

On the bench I saw what every amplifier designer before me has seen. crank up the tube current and the distortion goes down. Sadly tube life goes down faster than the distortion.

did I already say - I really like his sense of humor ?

His polarizing personality aside, I am not into buying audio products to make my friends happy. Once the product comes through my door it becomes mine, including any problems that might come up. The last thing I want to do is ship a product from Canada to California for repair. Unless its January and I am along for the ride. Again.. as to whether there are any axes to grind in this case...with the Fuses.... who knows... I just ask those reading this thread to think about something.

When someone puts this much detail, effort and focus on the type of fuse that goes into his amps.

What is that saying about the actual amp’s design, detail, execution ?