Replacement Fuses


Replacing fuses in amplifiers and Pre Amps
with high end fuses such as Synergistic Research and Hi Fi Tuning seems to make a difference according to PS Audio
128x128cincyjim

It's your money to waste.
+1

  To those "non technical" members that are interested.
Just clean and tighten your fuse holder and re-new your fuse (if old) with a good quality 50cent Bussman, Littlefuse or similar.
As with "many switch-on surges" they do deteriorate, bend, stretch and get crusty with electrolysis formations on their fusible wire elements before they give out, as these pics show of a fuse wire element ageing over time show. https://ibb.co/9NbTwqK
(even the $$$ boutique ones will age just as much also)
Cheers George

Post removed 
@noromance + david_ten:    Thank you, for publicly confessing to your experimentation and reporting your experiences.     There's still hope, for AudiogoN!
I now have 14 days on the SR Orange fuses in my amps. The Orange version is an easy recommendation for me to make over the Blue Fuses they replaced, which are good in their own right.

If you would like additional details, PM me.

I’ll post a short writeup on my audio blog when I’m feeling up to it. Health issues have been interfering.
A tube arcing issue with one of my NOS mercury vapor 82 tubes blew both a stock as well as one of my SR Blue fuses.

Just replaced the fuses in each amp with SR Orange. I'll report back once break in is behind me.
I tried a $40 Furatech rhodium fuse but didn't like it.
Wrapping a few turns of masking tape around the glass part only - no touchy end caps - brought definite improvements. Blacker background and more stable 3D image for free.
Hi,
Agree fully, they have a positive influence and sound better with correct direction. I use Furutech ones. Wortthwile and makes sense.
Loudmouths and smartasses aren’t nearly as influential as they think. I was on the fence about fuses for a long time not because of their brainless backwardness but because it just seemed too unlikely any single inch of wire could matter all that much.

Then one day Synergistic had a special, free fuse with something I was already planning on buying anyway, and so that put me over the edge. With nothing really riding on the line (30 day return guarantee) I stuck the fuse in.

First question, which way? Oh well. 50/50. Find out soon enough.

Right away, and I mean immediately, the sound was a lot more dynamic, clear, and 3D. There’s a grainy sort of character with most new stuff, and it changes and improves minute by minute in the beginning, and this was there too. But something else just wasn’t quite right. The sound was a bit confused or incoherent. Which is odd to say having said it was clear and 3D. Well sorry, but that’s just the way it was. No Synergistic product has ever sounded like this, and I have heard quite a few of them, so within a very few minutes it was obvious to me the fuse was going the wrong way.

So I flipped it around and yes indeed that was the problem. Now the sound was even more dynamic, clear, and 3D, plus now with this organic character of being much more palpably there and real.

This by the way was the Blue Fuse. The improvement from this $150 fuse, actually free in my case, was so great I was buying more HFT just to get the fuses! A Blue fuse is easily more improvement than most $500 power cords out there. If that triggers you, too bad. Its true. Its actually about the same improvement as going from a freebie rubber power cord to a Synergistic Master Coupler, which is around $250-400 used.

Again, that was the Blue Fuse. Since then have taken advantage of opportunities to upgrade to Orange. Orange is just like Blue only even a little more clear and detailed yet with less grain and glare. Orange is Blue, improved and refined.

So let’s see now- fuses make a huge difference, $160 for a fuse is good value, and they are directional. Three loudmouth shibboleths destroyed in a single post. All in all a good days work. And the day is young....
Apparently: Paul McGowan is one of those nutcases, that believes in actually trying something, to determine if he can hear a difference.    When he does; he admits it (GASP).
Try and learn for yourself. There are a lot of loudmouths and smart assess here.
BTW, there is a growing list of people I do not respond to. Experience has taught it's largely a waste of time. 
Building a better system is a matter of doing, not exercising the jaw.  :)