QUALITY AND SECURITY OF "LITTELFUSE" PRODUCTS

Sweet fancy Moses!

There must be thousands of advanced audiophiles, you know, the ones who actually care about fuses and sound quality who, unlike manufacturers, DID get the memo regarding fuse directionality. What we have here ladies and germs is The Backfire Effect in full bloom. High entertainment for sure. Ones things for sure, pseudo skeptics like to rant and carry on but you will never see them actually get down to brass tacks and investigate these claims of directionality.  They'd rather fight than switch.

Almarg wrote,

"I have no doubt that Littelfuses of the same current ratings, voltage ratings, fast/slow ratings, and physical size as the ones in your equipment would provide proper protection, and would also not blow when they shouldn’t. As to how the resulting sonics would compare with either the stock fuses that are used in your components or with SR or other audiophile-oriented fuses, in the absence of reports from a variety of users who have performed careful, thorough, and unbiased direct comparisons in a variety of components and circuit applications (e.g., both AC mains fuses and DC rail fuses), I don’t think anyone can do more than speculate. And I think it can be expected that more often than not audiophile speculation will be in the direction of assuming that solid engineering and low price = inferior sonics."

That is SO funny. You can lead a hoss to water but you can’t make him drink. There’s no Skeptic like an old Skeptic. Faint heart n’e’r won fair maiden. Yadda yadda yadda. But looking on the positive side that was a well written paragraph. You came damn close to convincing me. 

;-)



geoff kait
machina dynamica
no goats no glory

Pretty sure Audio Magic uses LITTELFUSE as the basis for their aftermarket fuses, Super Fuse and Beeswax Fuse. Although if that’s true I imagine LITTELFUSE would probably not go along with the whole idea of filling the inside of the fuse with liquid or beeswax not to mention whatever else Audio Magic does to the fuse. And I suspect LITTELFUSE wouldn’t go along with cryogenic treatment of their fuses or even experimenting with fuse directionality. One can’t help wondering if LITTELFUSE even heard of wire directionality? Most likely not.

geoff kait

"All too frequently however, people try to solve architectural (design) problems with band aids. This is not to diminish the importance of parts quality, and parts (whether it’s fuses or cables or anything else) is a topic for a whole ’nuther thread - a rabbit hole I don’t have time or inclination to rehash for the thousandth time ;-)"

Not sure I can agree that people are trying to solve architectural (design) problems, whatever that actually means, by replacing stock fuses with aftermarket fuses. It’s strictly a sound quality issue. Those audiophiles. What are you going to do?

Many of the aftermarket fuses ARE ceramic. Can you believe it? If there were any failures of aftermarket fuses I’m pretty sure you would hear about it here. And all over the Internet. But there is only the sound of crickets. One imagines you probably won’t be purchasing any liquid-filled audiophile fuses anytime real soon. ;-)

There is at least one audiophile fuse holder, a silver plated one from Acme Audio. I’m pretty sure your probably making A Strawman Argument wrt the safety issue since AFAIK there are no safety issues with audiophile fuses. If there were I kind of doubt they would be in business as long as they have. What is it, twenty years? Even the Acme fuse holder has been around like, forever.

The sky is falling!


;-)

Just curious, does LITTELFUSE also have a PDF file that discusses the directionality of fuses or wire generally?  Maybe they just haven’t caught up to the aftermarket guys. Wire directionality is an important ingredient of fuses as we have seen. Is it possible high end audio is ahead of mainstream companies? Like with the Grapheme and the quantum dots. 

"You can also measure the effects of a fuse, however we’ve not been able to measure any effects of the boutique fuses as being any different than the regular ones, assuming that they were indeed the right rating. All that I’ve ever used is a regular 3 1/2 digit DVM."

When you say "we've not been able to measure any effects of the boutique fuses..." you’re probably not referring to HiFi Tuning, you know, that squirrely aftermarket fuse company that published third party fuse measurements on their web site. They measured some of the various HIFi Tuning fuses, other fuses, including stock off the shelf fuses, in both directions and cryo'd and in cryo'd. 

Al, Thanks for providing the link to the HiFi Tuning data discussion of yore and thanks to no noise for the link to the data sheets. I went back and read the page of the discussion of the HiFi Tuning data this morning and was surprised to see it had been discussed to such an extent here. Even with all that has happened in the interim, you know, with the Red Fuse, the Black fuse, the Audio Magic Super Fuse and so forth, the skeptics are still holding their position. Looks like were not going to be able to take the Ant Hill. 

I hate to burst everybody’s bubble. Not only are all fuses directional but all wire is directional, at least the ones with metal conductors. It’s not like this is exactly headline news, which makes this so difficult. Every Yutz with ears has know this for at least twenty five years. Have you guys been living in a cave or something? You can come out, now. The war has been over for years. Bdp24, you're following the wrong sheep.

Bdp24 wrote,

"Whether or not wire is directional is a separate matter from the directionality of fuses. Directionality of a fuse, in an AC circuit? AC, short for Alternating Current. That term is quite literal, and has explicate implications. We all agree Ralph knows what he’s talking about, right?"

?????????

geoff kait
machina dramatica

Yup, there it is, again. The Backfire Effect. Ka-pow!!

Exhibit A, this just in...

from Steve Hoffman’s web site, date 2004,

"Here is what Bill Low (owner of Audioquest) says about directionality:

"Directionality: All cables are directional, from hardware store electrical cable to the finest pure silver cables. All AudioQuest cables are marked for direction. With other cables it might be necessary to simply listen to the cables in one direction and then the other. The difference will be clear-in the correct direction the music is more relaxed, pleasant and believable. While cable directionality is not fully understood, it is clear that the molecular structure of drawn metal is not symmetrical, providing a physical explanation for the existence of directionality.""

geoff kait, machina dynamica

Bdp24 wrote,

"Now Geoff, could I ask you to explain how a fuse in an AC circuit can be directional? AC, you know, for Alternating Current. Ralph Karsten must have skipped that chapter in his electronics engineering books. Of course, perhaps they weren’t "New Age" textbooks."

You might consider not adopting the snarky attitude. Let me ask you a question, do you think that all of the fuse customers, you know, the ones who actually installed aftermarket fuses, reported right here on this forum hearing the difference between when the fuse was installed in the correct direction and when it was installed in the wrong direction were high on PCP? Or that there is a global conspiracy to drive pseudo skeptics crazy?

bdp24 wrote,

"I have no idea Geoff, and I am not questioning the claims of those who say they hear a difference. What I am doing is asking in all seriousness (snarking aside) how it is a fuse can possibly be directional while operating in an AC circuit."

If fuses were not directional in AC circuits then we wouldn’t be getting all these reports of directionality. The data sheets provided on the HiFi Tuning web site contain the statement that even for AC - Resistance measurements directionality of fuses was noted. Case closed.


Geoff Kait
machina dynamics

Al refers to them as anecdotal. I prefer to refer to them as evidence. It’s what folks observe, you know, hear. Folks think of seeing as observation usually, but isn't hearing observation, too?  t’s all part of the thing called the scientific method. We have a hypothesis, we test the hypothesis and we accept or reject the hypothesis based on ob-ser-va-tion. It’s actually remarkably simply. As I am fond of saying, it’s the preponderance of the evidence that counts. And there certainly has been a bunch of that, 

Mapman wrote,

"I was given a Synergistic Red Fuse to try. I tried reversing directions. Did not hear a difference. So by geoff’s logic that means there IS NONE. What a joke!"

There is an exception to every rule. Of course, there are any number of perfectly good reasons why you didn’t hear a difference. Shall we explore what those are? ;-)

Peter wrote,

"Geoff, Rational and Logical comes to mind."

Thanks, Peter. I frequently see those three words used together.

Geoff

I'm starting to get a bad feeling again.

Atmasphere wrote,

"In case no-one has made this clear, Littlefuse and Buss are the two top manufacturers of fuses worldwide."

Nobody is denying that.

Atmasphere also wrote,

"Their product is excellent and reliable and beyond reproach."

Nobody is denying that, either. All we are saying is give peace a chance. No wait a minute! I meant to say all we are saying is that aftermarket fuses sound better than LITTELFUSE and Buss fuses. Especially when the LITTELFUSE or Buss fuse is inserted backwards. Take a LITTELFUSE or Buss fuse, paint it black with Graphene, cover it with Mu Metal, damp it from vibration, and paint the end caps violet. Trust me, it'll sound better. You can have your cake and eat it too.

geoff kait
no goats no glory

Apparently when you run out of rational arguments there is always the old fallback to name calling.  

Cheers,

geoff kait
Machina Dramatic 
advanced audio concepts

Atmasphere wrote,

""Apparently when you run out of rational arguments there is always the old fallback to name calling."

Actually no- the principle is ’attack the argument not the person’, otherwise you could report my post. You have mis-stated things, quite clearly. I am saying your statements (arguments) are nonsense- including this one."

Your lack of any rational argument again is duly noted. Calling someone’s post nonsense doesn’t qualify as any sort of rational argument. It’s a personal attack, not an attack of the argument. You can’t win any argument by claiming the other fellow’s argument is nonsense or wrong or any such thing. A debate is not over as soon as one person calls the other an idiot or calls his argument stupid or nonsense. Follow? Not to mention your whole LITTELFUSE and Buss fuse defense is actually irrelevant in the context of aftermarket fuses. Any more than claiming Alpha Wire and Belden cables are well made and reliable is relevant to a discussion of audiophile cables. Your claim that LITTELFUSE and Buss fuses are well made and reliable may well be true but as an audiophile, who cares? My recommendation for your next move is to claim, "I don’t really care about aftermarket fuses, anyway."

Cheers,

geoff kait
machina dynamica

I have been using glass aftermarket fuses for tube electronics for twenty years, including Isoclean fuses and the Audio Magic Super Fuse, the latter being a glass Fuse injected with a liquid of some sort. I never had a single problem.  Was that wrong of me?

geoff kait
machina dynamica
no goats no glory