Review : AMR Audio 90% Silver Alloy Fuse Tube With Fisher 180 stereo receiver

Budget Esoterica Review Magazine
July 2018 Issue


AMR Audio 90% Silver Alloy Fuse Tube

I like trying different audiophile fuses and at these low prices, why not? The AMR silver fuse sells on Ebay for $3 with free shipping. I decided to try the AMR fuse with a Fisher 180 stereo receiver that came out of the early 1970's. This is a near bottom of the line receiver that is no way audiophile quality. I consider the sound to be average. When i first powered it on it sounded dirty, muddy  and undefined. With a few tweaks and a lot of patience i got it to sound pretty good. First and most important i cleaned the controls with Caig Deoxit. I then put rca noisestoppers on the unused rca jacks and installed two of the AMR fuses in the Fisher receiver. I left the receiver powered on at least a month. No, the fuses did not turn my Fisher into a Mcintosh, but i did notice improvements in some areas. The first thing i noticed was a "freer" more effortless sound. I think i also heard slight improvements in dynamics, frequency response and sound staging. 

I consider strong vocals to be one of the hallmarks of good amplification and the Fisher receiver with the AMR fuse performed pretty nicely in this regard. Listening to the song , "Seems Like A Dream" , from the Luba cd titled Chain Reaction, i noticed good strong vocals with a little bit of air around the singer. I also noticed a slightly airy sound from the instruments at the beginning of the song. Highs were not bad, maybe a little shelved down from what i hear from my better amps. Bass was surprisingly punchy considering the low wattage rating of the receiver.

Listening to the Kenny Barron Quintet Concentric circles opening song titled, "DPW", i was slightly impressed with the levels of musicality and the fullness of the horns. The highs were fairly strong and i heard a good sense of coherence from the musicians. On track number two , "Concentric Circles", the highs had a slight silvery shimmer. I think the AMR fuse may be adding a little better sense of separation also. The instruments had good tone and i did not notice much coloration. The upright bass was pretty clean with a little detail and some sense of airiness around it. This Kenny Barron cd is full of unique music that bears repeated listening. 

Fuse reviews are very difficult to do. The only proper way would be to have two stereo systems that are exactly the same, one with a stock fuse and the other with an audiophile fuse. Even so, i suspect that these little buggers are slightly increasing the sound quality. As for the Fisher receiver, it is not audiophile quality, but sounds pretty good when you use the aforementioned tweaks and leave it powered on for a few months. 

Associated Equipment

Fisher 180 Stereo Receiver with AMR fuse, rca caps and deoxit cleaning
Onkyo DV-SP405 DVD player
Fatman audio speaker cables
Ultralink Discovery stereo interconnect
Mission bookshelf speakers
Target speaker stands