Synergistic Red Fuse ...

For the audiophile who is perhaps not well heeled or too cheap he can always flip around those cheap stock fuses and see if that improves things as it's a wire directionality issue as much as anything else. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  If fuses can make such a big difference imagine for a moment of the industry suddenly got smart and manufactured all wire like that.  All wire, all cables, all internal wiring of components and speakers, the transformers, capacitors, everything?  Hel-looo!

Uh, when a fuse blows it prevents damage to the equipment the last time I looked.

Taters, I see what you mean.  That's if the fuse doesn't blow I'm pretty sure. I.e., if the fuse rating is too high to prevent current from roasting capacitors by the open fire. 

Well, you know, since all wire is directional, not just fuses, it all depends on which direction you insert the copper rod as to whether it will sound better than the fuse you're replacing, assuming of course that the direction of the fuse was correct in the first place.  There's a 50% chance it wasn't correct. 

OK, let me try again.  Wrapping a transformer once absorbs 75% of the magnetic field. Wrapping it twice absorbs 96% of the magnetic field.

cheerios

Mu metal around transformers rocks!  Wrapping transformers twice rocks even more.

These are the WA Quantum Chips you're referring to? 

One of the best places for a WA Cable Chip after much experimentation is wrapped around the house AC wire for the audio circuit as it comes into the circuit breaker on the breaker box. I also am a big fan of the WA Inductor Chip adjacent to the transducer of each headphone.

Unless I miss my guess the active ingredient is rather like the active ingredient in the quantum chip I designed, the Super Intelligent Chip. But I've never actually looked inside one of the WA Quantum Chips. Quantum mechanics joke.

But we have published how the Intelligent Chip works. Close enough for Government work.

http://machinadynamica.com/machina64.htm

GK

Getting back to the WA Quantum Chips for just a sec, I would like to point out a couple things. One is just how tiny some of these chips actually are. The one for small capacitors is what about 1/8" diam and thin as all get out. It cannot be a vibration damper or contstrained layer damper or anything like say the Marigo VTS Dot which is also rather the same diameter and also intended for (damping vibration of) capacitors.

In like manner the WA Quantum Cable Chip, as I already mentioned, is very effective wrapped around the audio circuit wire as it comes into the circuit breaker box. Therefore - and I hate to judge before all the facts are in - I kind of doubt the Cable Chip could be operating as a vibration damper as it’s just too far upstream. Upstream of where all the vibration is. The vibration that’s causing problems is way downstream of the circuit breaker box and the Cable Chip is even upstream of that! So, if they’re not anti vibration devices what they heck are they?

There’s a WA Quantum Chip for Cables, one for Power, one for capacitors, one for Inductors and Coils, one for Fuses. If they were acting on vibration wouldn’t they just sell one Type of Chip that could be used anywhere? Are the chips affecting RFI/EMI? Probably not since the speaker chip is placed on the cabinet. Are they affecting the way energy flows in the system, as the maker of the WA Quantum Chip suggests? Well, maybe. But what’s inside the chip? There not much room in one of those chips to put anything. In fact there is NO ROOM to put anything. Hel-looo!

As as regards the reports that WA Quantum Chips don’t work in some applications, or don’t work for some people or require breaking in well, isn’t that true of just about everything?

I find the change in fuse direction subtle, too. However, if you have say four or five fuses in your system including fuses in speakers and you change the direction of each fuse one at a time, listening to the sound after each change, deciding whether the new direction is better or worse, then repeat the entire process to be sure you guessed right, at the end of the day, with all of the fuses in the right direction, the difference in sound will NOT be subtle. Or if you like, it will be subtle but powerful.

GK

Ooops, I meant to write, "...why all wire and cables are not installed with correct direction in mind."

Before I forget, be sure and try reversing the direction of interconnects to see if the sound improves.  Better safe than sorry. I won't even get into why all wire and cables are installed with correct direction in mind. Transformers, the whole nine yards!

One wonders if there’s any advantage to quantum tunneling say an entire transformer....hmmmmm. Or all of the internal wiring in a preamp. Maybe provide spools of quantum tunneled hook up wire.

How many combinations of directions for two fuses?  

First fuse in WRONG direction, the other in WRONG direction.  

First fuse in RIGHT direction, the other in WRONG direction.  

The first fuse in WRONG direction, the other in RIGHT direction.  

Finally the first fuse in RIGHT direction, the second fuse in RIGHT direction.  

POP QUIZ: How many combinations for three fuses?

Mitch wrote,

"Geoff, I have 4, 10A fast-blow fuses in my big amp. I have a better chance of winning powerball than getting all the directions correct at the same time, and there is no f’in way I am going to sit around and try listening to every permutation."

I have some good news for you. The odds are pretty good are 2 of them are already in the right direction. You just have to figure out which ones they are. ;-). In fact statistically the odds aren’t terrible that all 4 are already in the right direction. A lot better than winning Powerball.

"Question? If AC changes direction 120 times per second or 60 cycles per second [60hz]... how then can a change in fuse orientation make a difference in sound quality if there is a constant cycle change in the flow of current? Am I missing something here?"

The current doesn't carry the signal.  Even if it did we only care about the direction toward the speakers.  We don't care about the other direction.

I’m not sure we don’t already have an answer to the whole wire and fuse directionality issue. In fact we hd the nswersgoes about 25 or 30 years ago when cable mnufacturers first began putting arrows on their interconnects and other cables. And how do they know which way the arrows go? They know because they have done the experiments and found that one direction - as the wire comes off the final die - or as the wire comes off the big spool - sounds better than the other. It’s not really all that subtle. Anyway, once you find out the orientation of the wire as it comes off the spool that sounds best as a manufacturer you simply keep track of the manufacturing process of all future wire, even the wire for fuses. If you are not manufacturing the fuse yourself as the manufacturer but modifying a stock fuse you simply don’t put arrows on the fuse and let the customer do the listening test. For interconnects and other cables or even hook up wire it’s ridiculously simple to keep everything straight. It’s also rather easy to eliminate the contact issue from the equation. Not that the conract surface isn’t an issue. Any old fuse is directional, even stock fuses respond well to flipping them.

Mopman wrote,

"Geoff if you know just be nice and share and stop teasing the audiophiles."

if I know? I thought everyone knew.  Don't you know?

an ordinary man has no means of deliverance.

I don’t know how it works but works it does! What almost every reviewer says about whatever tweak or device he’s reviewing. I find it a little bit hard to believe that none of the aftermarket fuse manufacturers provide any explanation for how their product works. We already know for example that wire directionality is part of it. Anyone wish to take a stab at other things aftermarket fuses do better than stock fuses? Thimk, thimk!

Huh? Are there really ANY cases where aftermarket fuses failed to protect the equipment? I haven’t heard of any, maybe you have an inside track. As for stock fuses degrading the sound they will, like aftermarket fuses, degrade the sound less when they are inserted in the correct direction. There are in fact a number of things one can do with stock fuses to improve their performance including addressing RFI/EMI, vibration and magnetic fields as well as employing a better fuse holder and employing contact enhancer on the fuse caps.

Don’t get your panties in a twist, Mopman. Let’s see, we already covered wire directionality. So what’s left? Well, without straining my noggin too much there’s uh vibration control, RFI/EMI absorption, better metals and or higher purity metals for the wire itself as well as the end caps. It’s not rocket science. We also know that the Red Fuse undergoes quantum tunneling as it were. What else? I’ll leave that to the student.

Of course everything can be improved.  Cryogenically treated fuses are a step in the right direction as is the use of a contact enhancer on the end caps, e.g., Quicksilver Gold, which unfortunately is out of production.  Exposure of the fuse to magnetic fields can be limited by the prudent use of mu metal around Mr. Fuse. Not to mention replacing the fuse holder with something along the lines of Acme's Silver Plated Fuse Holder.

Must be the Snowball Effect. HiFi Tuning and Isoclean fuses ( the ones with the little arrows on them) have been around what at least 12 years. Probably closer to 20. I propose some enterprising person perform a proper review of the "top five" aftermarket fuses. That shouldn’t take long.

One can’t help wondering, Tom, how long it would take for a solid copper rod to break in, 600 hours? One assumes you're going to have the solid copper rod quantum tunneled, no?  If it were me is probably use a solid silver rod and wrap it in 3M anti EMI/RFI stuff.

The $64K question - are no fuses better than Black fuses?  Well, I reckon so.  I haven't had fuses for a couple years since I bypassed the fuse in my Oppo with copper.  Since then I went totally fuse-less. No fuses, no house AC no power cords. I'm out there and lovin' it, Jerry. 

That's interesting, Tom. How so?

I would imagine the primary labor intensity related to the making of the Beeswax fuse is taking the beeswax from the bees in the first place.

"During the first listening session, Robert and I kept saying: "How can the system get better than this?" Well, after fitting the system with the RED fuses, the BLACK fuses were introduced."

The Last Tweak Syndrome. It's difficult to imagine it can get better and the LAST tweak was the biggest.

SR makes quantum chips? For real?

I’m going to go out on a limb a little bit here and just a wild guess, but is Graphene by any chance, uh, black?
:-)

idle question: anyone know where I can pick up some Graphene hookup wire?

sidebar: Mapman, I can’t see you buying an aftermarket fuse. Sorry. No way, no how. Not a red one, white, black one. It’s not in your nature. Too much angst.

;-)

Mapman, I feel your angst. The Polaroid Land camera produced the same sensation in that remote island in the middle of nowhere when it was demonstrated to the natives.

I challenge anyone to determine the real break in time for fuses or capacitors or any electronic component for one reason:  How can you keep track of the sound closely enough to know when the sound is no longer improving? Do folks stand by and wait patiently for the fuse to break in, monitoring the performance a little bit every day and do nothing else?  Then repeat the process for the next fuse? The Duelund capacitors are rumored to take 500 hours or longer to break in and I'm even not sure if that means completely broken in or not.  The system and environment cannot be controlled well enough to conduct such an experiment. This is especially true for most audiophiles who are continually moving thing around, changing out one component or another, changing cables, trying various tweaks, changing fuses, changing the direction of fuses, adding room treatment, removing room treatment, etc. There are too many variables. Has anyone used the XLO Test CD burn in track to break in fuses? That would be a little more effective than simply playing music and it can be played non-stop. And if you’re looking to squeeze some more juice out of the tangerine why not cryo the fuse?

"Or maybe these fuses have some other method of operation (similar to Bybee filters) that enable them to impart their "magic". In the end, I guess one must remain open minded. I use HFT fuses but I cannot really say with authority whether they made any difference. I look forward to trying these out sometime in the near future."

Have you tried reversing the direction of an HFT fuse?  You should be able to hear that.

There have been failures of electronics due to aftermarket fuses? When, where, who, how? Gee, you’d think it would be all over the boards. Are audiophile houses burning down even as we speak? Rome burned while Nero fiddled with his fuses. All I see on audio boards are heaps of praise on aftermarket fuses. Could there be a deep hidden dirty little secret here? Perchance an exploding transformer or two.
 ;-)

I have one word.  Wire (fuse)  directionality.

"It is far, far from my intention to cast a pall on SR product, as I've greatly enjoyed tweaks for my setup over the years and was very much looking forward to this one, and it's not in my nature to be a downer on something so fun for all of us."

Hmmmmm, interesting.

I don’t like to draw any conclusions before all the facts are in but so far this appears to be just a lot of who shot John, with the usual suspects all lined up trying to punch holes in the whole aftermarket fuse balloon, as is their wont. It’s not like aftermarket fuses are anything new, what is it like twenty years? yet the pessimism and uber skepticism doth persist. True or false, all the skeptics are very content and happy with their systems and have no desire whatsoever to try and coax that last 5% performance out of their systems? :-)

"Maybe there is something magical these fuses impart."

I suspect you were probably right the first time, that bypassing the stock fuse with pure copper is better than any fuse, with the caveate that you take care to protect the exposed copper wire from local magnetic fields and RFI/EMI and vibration. And that the copper wire is inserted in the correct orientation.

The article you linked to must have been written prior to the discovery that wire is directional. Or that it is exposed to the deleterious effects of vibration, RFI and magnetic fields.

Amusing quotes from the movie 12 Angry Men:

12 angry men quotes

Juror #2: It's hard to put into words. I just think he's guilty. I thought it was obvious from the word, 'Go'. Nobody proved otherwise.
Juror #8: Nobody has to prove otherwise. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. The defendant doesn't even have to open his mouth. That's in the Constitution.

Juror #8: It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth.

Juror #3: That business before when that tall guy, what's-his-name, was trying to bait me? That doesn't prove anything. I'm a pretty excitable person. I mean, where does he come off calling me a public avenger, sadist and everything? Anyone in his right mind would blow his stack. He was just trying to bait me.
Juror #4: He did an excellent job.

The skeptics are out in full force today. Is it a full moon?

HiFi had a third party actually measure fuses' performance - their fuses, competitor’s fuses, cryo’d fuses, standard fuses, backwards and forwards. And the data is there for all to see. Hel-looo! I hate to judge before all the facts are in but it certainly appears fuse technology evolves just like everything else in this hobby.  The skepticism is charming, no problem there.

ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

The determined skeptic can find all sorts of arguments why something cannot possibly work even in light of the fact that everyone who has actually tried the thing reports positive results. Geez, talk about not accepting evidence! Do you actually believe that some law(s) of physics are being disobeyed? Without trying too hard I can think of at least four or five perfectly logical reasons why aftermarket fuses SHOULD definitely sound better than stock fuses. Many of those reasons are the EXACT SAME REASONS why some cables sound better than others. I don’t think this is rocket science. Could ten thousand audiophiles be wrong? Not bloody likely. The statistical probability that there is some mysterious error that everyone is making or that there is mass hysteria or mass hypnosis or the placebo effect or expectation bias is about the same as your winning the big lottery. The only logical conclusion one can really make in the Case of the Aftermarket Fuse is that there must be SOMETHING GOING ON, not that there is NOTHING GOING ON. Next topic, "How small can something be and still make a significant improvement to the sound?"

Night of the Living English Majors 

Let’s declare this thread a Mexican standoff. Both sides are repeating the same arguments as infinitum. I hate to judge before all the facts are in but this whole thing, with the fuses, with directionality, with the Graphene, with demand for explanations, while not completely without merit, appears to be at impasse most probably resulting from the Backfire Effect. Besides I thought the whole world loves a mystery. There is no real reason even it were an intellectual pursuit which I’m not actually convinced it is why all these various questions have to have answers. Mysteries are cool. No one even understands how electricity works so I don’t really see the big deal.

THE BACKFIRE EFFECT

“”What should be evident from the studies on the backfire effect is you can never win an argument online. When you start to pull out facts and figures, hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel as though they are even more sure of their position than before you started the debate. As they match your fervor, the same thing happens in your skull. The backfire effect pushes both of you deeper into your original beliefs.

—You Are Not So Smart - The Backfire Effect[1]

The backfire effect occurs when, in the face of contradictory evidence, established beliefs do not change but actually get stronger. The effect has been demonstrated experimentally in psychological tests, where subjects are given data that either reinforces or goes against their existing biases - and in most cases people can be shown to increase their confidence in their prior position regardless of the evidence they were faced with.

Mapman wrote,

"Audiophile fuses are always a controversial topic.

People hear improvements but nobody can explain why.

That makes it interesting to me at least.

You’d think that some knowledgeable EEs in these parts could explain it. But not the case.

So there are some happy customers here hearing benefits yet why remains a mystery.

That’s pretty interesting stuff compared to a lot of more mundane topics one often finds."

Golleee, Mapman, is your memory completely shot? The reasons, and I’m talking about the technical reasons, why aftermarket fuses sound better than stock fuses have been listed out many times, by lots of folks, not just yours truly. If it makes you happy to pretend that no one has explained fuses, or even that they are controversial, that’s certainly your prerogative. But give me a break. Let’s see, how long have aftermarket fuses been around, fifteen years? Twenty years? Hel-looo! Knowledgeable EEs in these parts. You mean like Al? But he's a skeptic.  Wouldn't it be a conflict of interest for him to explain it?

Mapman wrote,

"I have no conflict of interest either. I even cited how the fuses might make a difference. But I am also not an EE. So reduce my skeptic rating accordingly please. :^) "

So which is it, you think fuses work, you think fuses don’t work? Color me confused. It certainly appears you and Al are the main uber skeptics on this thread. Everything is topsy-turvy. "Fuses are too small to make a difference." "Fuses are unreliable." "Fuses can’t possibly work as the manufacturer states." How can a fuse possibly make any difference to the sound when the signal is AC?" "There is no such thing as wire directionality." Sorry, Charlie. Been there, done that. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder where you are, up above the sky so high....

Mapman also wrote,

"Geoff with all due respect you are a vendor and do have a conflict of interest."

Ouch! Very ouch! But seriously, Mopman, how does my vendor status enter into a discussion of fuses? I don’t sell fuses? You seem to be saying vendors can’t participate in discussions on ANY topic and should be banned from the site. Methinks the skeptic doth protest too much.

"Have any of you tried the black fused with Wa quantum chip? I was using them on RED with excellent results. Thanks!"

Outstanding question! Some other things off top of head, contact enhancer, replace fuse holder with a better one such as Acme silver plated one, send the fuse off to your local cryo company such as the one I’ve been using for 20 years (gosh, how time flies) - Cryopro, use a purple ink pen to paint the end caps, protect the fuse from mag fields with mu metal, damp the fuse & fuse holder.