Go to the "Misc Forum" and search, you'll find all snake oil answers there.
Cheers George
Cheers George
synergistic research orange blue fuse direction.
Hi, I have two 611s, one 302 and one 452 McIntosh amps, and I just purchased three Synergistic Research (SR) Orange fuses. I also received one SR Blue fuse free with the purchase of the SR blue receptacle. Would someone advise me with some specificity on the directional installation of the Blue and Orange fuse. Again all the amps are McIntosh.
Thanks.
Guy
Thanks.
Guy
70 responses Add your response
@guyt, Please excuse georgehifi post. For whatever reason, the fuse threads interferes with George’s ability to make any intelligent dialogue. Boutique fuses are poor Georgie’s kryptonite 😎 Back to your question, insert one fuse at a time. Then start listening to the music. Swap direction of the fuse and listen again, keep the direction that sounds best to your ears. |
Ok thanks. I was hoping that someone has used the fuses with Mac amps and could give instructions on orientation of the fuse in the amp respective to the markings on the fuse. You would think that SR would give instructions that were more suited for ignorant people like myself. Thank you for your input. |
The difference is not subtle, not at all. In my amp, because of where it goes its impossible to tell which way current goes anyway. So 50/50, stuck it in. Right away noticed big improvement, yet it just did not sound right. Deeper, wider, more dynamic, but somehow messed up. Hard to describe. It got better but within a few minutes I knew it was wrong. Switched direction, night and day. To think there are people unable to hear such obvious differences, well it just boggles my mind. Especially to then brag to the world: Hey world! I’m deaf! Deaf as a doorknob! And yet, there they go. We should set up a foundation, raise some money, see if we can find a cure. Meantime listen, flip, listen. You will hear it. Assuming of course you’re not the doorknob. |
I have tested the basic ceramic fuse that comes stock in the Pass Labs amplifiers that use a fuse. The fuse does exhibit directionally, but it is not a striking difference. The audiophile fuses I have tried have a greater change in sound depending in the direction they are installed. The Synergistic Research Blue and Orange fuses should be installed with the "S" closest to the hot side of the fuse holder and the "R" closest to the Neutral side of the fuse holder. There are at least two ways to decide which side is the hot side. One is to buy an inexpensive circuit tester screwdriver. When touching a hot connection the screwdriver will exhibit a bright light. The less reliable method is to look at the equipment and trace the direction the current flows. This is straight forward when the fuse is located as part of the inlet for the power cord. Easy to see which side is Hot and which side is neutral. At other fuse locations current direction may not be obvious.The "S" of the Synergistic Research label should be closest to the Hot side. Of course the other approach is to just listen to music (thirty seconds is plenty) , and keep the fuse in place where the sound is better. This can be done on first installation. You do not need to break in a fuse for 10 days and then test for optimum direction. I have done that rather tedious experiment. No need to repeat that approach. David Pritchard |
I am just curious....if you buy a basic fuse direction does not matter. Why is it that the SR fuses or other high end fuses require proper directionality? They don’t it’s BS posted up here by the fuser voodooist and shillers. As AC mains is just that, "alternating current" that changes’s it’s direction 60 x a second, so how can a ac fuse be directional. Even the snake oil fuse manufacturers won’t come on here to back some of the ridiculous claims posted that tells you something. Cheers George |
There are at least two ways to decide which side is the hot side. One is to buy an inexpensive circuit tester screwdriver. When touching a hot connection the screwdriver will exhibit a bright light. The less reliable method is to look at the equipment and trace the direction the current flows.This sort of info, is extremely dangerous to ask a gullible or non qualified technician to do, and it should be deleted, some one, one day will get hurt or worse. |
@guyt The easiest way is to simply test the sound quality in each direction. As others have stated, this doesn’t take long at all, the fuse doesn’t need to be fully broken in, and the preference will be clear to you. +1 to @davidpritchard for his very helpful post, copied below: I have tested the basic ceramic fuse that comes stock in the Pass Labs amplifiers that use a fuse. The fuse does exhibit directionally, but it is not a striking difference. The audiophile fuses I have tried have a greater change in sound depending in the direction they are installed. |
Thanks to you all for your input. The S and R on the fuse is located on one end of the fuse. So correct me if I am wrong it is not the vertical rotation of the fuse outside the fuse receptacle and reinsertion of the fuse, but the rotation of the fuse on the horizontal plane while the fuse is in the holder. Please advise. Thank you |
So correct me if I am wrong it is not the vertical rotation of the fuse outside the fuse receptacle and reinsertion of the fuse, but the rotation of the fuse on the horizontal plane while the fuse is in the holder. Please advise.Short of sticking your finger in there to see which side kills you, you will never find out which side is live, unless you are a technician with an ac voltage multimeter and have the knowledge on how to use it. And BTW!!! AC mains is non directional anyway!!! So return them and get your $600 back, and put back the $1 worth of fuses you took out, before the return time runs out!!!. Cheers George |
George, shouldn’t you be out saving KoalasYes and they probably have twice the brain power than what these fusers here have, and they’re stoned 24/7 on Eucalyptus leaves they eat. Hardcore they don’t roll them up. But with our fires we’ve had a few pics of toasted ones, which you Yanks poured out feelings and donations for. We give thanks to those kind Yanks. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-thirsty-koalas-devastated-by-recent-fires?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Emergency_AUS_EN_BMM&utm_content=bushfire%20koala&utm_term=%2Bbushfire%20%2Bkoala_b_c_&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkd2O1sPZ5gIVyo6PCh1AhgPmEAAYASAAEgIVPvD_BwE And again starting in a couple of days more >100 degree days in a row, with big wind, and we still have many fires burning just in NSW alone from 2 weeks ago. And also big thanks to the US fire fighters who are out here to help put these fires out |
It’s understandable why you are reacting to ’orange’ the way you have beenIt’s got nothing to do with it, but I’m sure if I had fuser voodoo skills, I could blame a Orange fuse being in the wrong way that started these insane fires, it’s about as believable as the other things they say an Orange fuses can do. |
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georgehifi says 'orange fuse bad.' So I guess TDS really is a thing after all. But enough of that. Seriously. Enough. Go away! OP has a serious question: The S and R on the fuse is located on one end of the fuse. So correct me if I am wrong it is not the vertical rotation of the fuse outside the fuse receptacle and reinsertion of the fuse, but the rotation of the fuse on the horizontal plane while the fuse is in the holder. Please advise. The standard with Synergistic is the signal and the writing go the same direction. There's a little round drop of graphene or whatever the secret sauce is, but it doesn't matter which way you rotate that, only flipping the fuse 180 matters. So yeah you had it wrong and now you are corrected. |
It's best to ignore most of what George says. If your views do not match his he becomes rude and at times abusive, trying his best to belittle others, only drawing attention to how petty he is (and his closed mindedness). His views and posts highlight the worst kind of human. One who is inconsistent in how he treats people, and friendliness is conditional on you agreeing with his views. |
Hello everyone. I’m new here. Josh. I’m 45 and consider myself an audiophile. I got into quality music young and by 16 was building car stereos and speaker enclosures for IASCA & USAC competitions. I also went to school a bit for electrical engineering. (Not long enough unfortunately) I’ve also worked at a recording studio as a tech and did a bit of roady work for a couple small electronic music artists. I recently revived my interest with my purchase of a used pair of Dynaudio Focus 260. My Schiit preamp, DAC and amp will be showing up in about a week. I’d like to think I’m not clueless and understand digital and analog signals and how they travel throughout the electrical pathways. I’m just having a difficult time understanding how a fuse with 60hz AC power running through it could change the sound of the music. I understand having a dedicated circuit breaker, large wire and a good outlet would help, and even starting to understand how a good power cord with well equipped ends would help. But.... a fuse? I’m trying to make sense of it. I understand it’s the one limiting factor in the AC power transfer from the cord to the internals. And...directional?! How could that possibly change the sound? I do listening tests with every small, single upgrade of any piece and I definitely have an excellent ear for sound. Any insight and/or recommendations would be helpful. My ears and mind are open.... Do used fuses get put up for sale often? I’d love to actually hear for myself the difference between crap and purposeful design. |
@f1status1 Fuse benefits and their directionality are not a real thing, but the nastiness and name-calling of their proponents is very real. Do not try to reason with common sense or solid engineering - if Synergistic Research says the sky is green then you are an ignorant moron if you don't see it that way. Find another thread that may have some merit, or continue to monitor this one for its entertainment value. |
Well of course one could do all the Deities a Dervish like homage by spending your money, take the product, bend over looking ever so diligently true North while noting the proper fuse holder aperture, insert said fuse into ......, stand up carefully allowing head to under body part clearance, praise yet again those Deities, flick the power switch with your most devil may care nonchalance; safe in the knowledge you've done your directional neutron proton transfer function BEST! Plus you paid through the %%5** to do it! ;-) Thanks everyone I really had an uproarious chest filling laugh reading many of these threads; and a bit of true wisdom dust sometimes gets posted too. ;-) |
cheeg: OK, I’ve been waiting for someone else to ask the obvious “dumb” question, but since none of you are volunteering, here goes: if it’s an AC signal, why does the directionality matter? The idea being, since its AC its alternating, back and forth, forth and back, what's the diff? That about it? In a nutshell? Okay so well first off in a house wired 120v the panel has 240v coming in with the breakers on the left connected to one 120v leg, the breakers on the right connected to the other 120v leg, and the 240v breakers taking up two spaces because they connect to both legs. Got it? Okay. So even taking the back and forth point of view they are not all the same. One swings one way. One swings the other. (As Seinfeld might add, "Not that there's anything wrong with that.") But what about 240v? What about the (admittedly rare) systems like mine where 240v steps down to 120v? There is no "leg" with a transformer. Well the answer is even then the power coming in one wire is positive, the other ground or negative. In any case the AC coming into all components, the first thing it does is go through a transformer (to get whatever voltage the component uses) then to some diode rectifiers and then to some power supply caps. Because all components, even though plugged into AC, they all run on DC. But you knew that, right? ;) So there's your flow. |
So from negative to positive... that I knew. I did read the whole thread before posting. Quite funny and interesting. Still going to test one.... Anyone got a rental fuse? What’s is the return policy on fuses from SR? I did read, not long ago, someone bought a blue receptacle with the carbon fiber plate and said it looked like a three year old painted it blue and the carbon looked horrible. I did notice Kimber Kable has outlets. After I run my new dedicated breaker and wire I think I’ll try one from them. Any other manufacturers make good quality outlets? |
@millercarbon I read your explanation twice, which is two times more than it deserves, and in those two readings I could not find a hint of an answer to the simple question fistatus1 posted. Just nonsense. And then when you finally do try to actually answer you go completely off the rails and talk about converting to DC - ignoring the fact that the majority of fuses are on the incoming AC line, not on the rectified and filtered DC. Your lack of understanding makes you a perfect candidate for the pseudo-scientific claims foisted by Ted Denney and his Synergistic Research con men. |
jerrybjReally!!! And they are suppose believe someone that does this to his system?? What a laugh! No, Really! What a laugh!
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The only thing funny is people still in denial over what's long since been settled. Like decades gone by. I mean let me show you how behind the times luddite stupid it is. "So you're telling me that electronic chip is gonna squirt fuel straight into the engine? And its gonna know to do this how? No way. Fuel injection is snake oil! Now carbs, distributor, that might actually work." Half a century out of date. That's all. All Synergistic comes with a 30 day return guarantee. You won't need it. Won't need to burn in for weeks either. It will sound good right out of the box. Better later. But good? Right from the very beginning. |
@millercarbon I read your explanation twice, which is two times more than it deserves, and in those two readings I could not find a hint of an answer to the simple question fistatus1 posted. Just nonsense. And then when you finally do try to actually answer you go completely off the rails and talk about converting to DC - ignoring the fact that the majority of fuses are on the incoming AC line, not on the rectified and filtered DC. Yeah, that's a problem all right. But the thing is, you write for an audience. That means making a choice. You can write for an audience of absolutely know-nothings. But this takes forever. Literally. Or you can write for a certain level of technical knowledge. This inevitably leaves out some while being more efficient for others. Don't know what to tell you except, maybe read a few more times, study the terms, learn a lot more. Because I can assure you its anything but off the rails. Spoon feeding now will only weaken us both. And I don't know about you but I have far too much respect for us both to do that. |
the fact that the majority of fuses are on the incoming AC line, not on the rectified and filtered DC. Your lack of understanding makes you a perfect candidate for the pseudo-scientific claims foisted by Ted Denney and his Synergistic Research con men. He has no idea, for any fuse to be detectable the "right way around" it would have to be acting like a diode, which it’s not! It’s a 10c glass fuse within it is a piece of resistance wire, designed to burn up at a certain amperage, then it’s wrapped in fancy Orange suit and sold to the gullible idiots for $160!!!!!!!!!! Cheers George |
The only thing funny is people still in denial over what’s long since been settled. All Synergistic comes with a 30 day return guarantee. You won’t need it. Won’t need to burn in for weeks either. It will sound good right out of the box. Better later. But good? Right from the very beginning.No what’s funny is the continued shilling by the same crew, thread after thread (even ones that have been closed and deleted) that goes on here for Synergistic Research snake oil. And it needs to be countered against, if not, it will become toxic for the gullible if there’s no opposing views put forward. It’s a 10c glass fuse, within it is a piece of resistance wire, designed to burn up at a certain amperage, then it’s wrapped in fancy Orange suit and sold to the gullible for $160!!!!!!!!!! The only way a fuse can sound better is if the old 10cent one has seen too many turn on cycles surges and has aged become crystallized and hardened, then all you have to do is replace it with a new 10cent one, not a snake oil $160 Orange one These two are the same fuse from new, that over time that have seen many turn on surge cycles https://ibb.co/yp4yBkB https://ibb.co/rm2sF49 |
jerrybj And I laugh at you.No I laugh at what you have tried to do to get better sound.
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Just do your thing, and leave me alone. Look again sunshine, you can't even get that right, you were the one that had a go at me first, you are small minded, vindictive one. https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/synergistic-research-orange-blue-fuse-direction/post?postid=1... |
George So now you are trying to justify? Justify your small mindedness... I’m telling everyone else to take your comments with a grain of salt. Instead, you are telling people you are ’the one, the only truth.’ Everyone else is wrong. And then you keep posting what I’ve done as some kind of proof. That is called trolling. Keep your eyes closed. And ignore the possibility that some things make a difference. And continue to dismiss others’ experience, as though you are an audio god. And well done. You've just showed you can find the definition of words you don't understand. I've deliberately kept it simple for you. |
The fact that you didn’t see that you started the personal attack today sunshine, and trying to side step it, https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/synergistic-research-orange-blue-fuse-direction/post?postid=1... shows you are oblivious to facts, somethings not right, your obsessions with the multitude of snake oil tweaks prove it also. |
millercarbon:
Okay so well first off in a house wired 120v the panel has 240v coming in with the breakers on the left connected to one 120v leg, the breakers on the right connected to the other 120v leg… But what about 240v...Well the answer is even then the power coming in one wire is positive, the other ground or negative. In any case the AC coming into all components, the first thing it does is go through a transformer (to get whatever voltage the component uses) then to some diode rectifiers and then to some power supply caps. Because all components, even though plugged into AC, they all run on DC. But you knew that, right? ;) Thank you for responding to my question, but the way I see it, it shouldn’t matter whether you’re getting your AC from the right or left side of the panel; both sides are supplying a 120v, 60Hz sine wave (I'll save the 240 discussion for another day). If you put your fuse on the incoming signal, the field across the fuse will change from +120v to -120v every cycle, so the current in the fuse will flow first in one direction, and then in the opposite direction, 60 times a second. At that point in the circuit, the amplitude is the same in both directions, so the current will spend just as much time flowing in one direction as the other. I don’t see how the directionality of the fuse could affect the downstream signal, unless you’re suggesting that the fuse passes more current on the positive side of the cycle as the negative side (or vice-versa). We can come back to that later if you like, but for now I’ll assume that is not what you meant. Now, you say, let’s look at the signal after it’s been rectified and stored in a capacitor; that’s fine, because then you would be dealing with DC, and directionality of the fuse could definitely make a difference. But my understanding is that these fuses are located in many different places within the amp, and the recommendations I’ve seen on Agon say it’s best to replace ALL the fuses with Synergistic Orange (or Blue). Are they saying that ALL the fuse locations in a power amp are only passing current in one direction? That seems really unlikely. I can see how some of the fuse locations could be limited to DC, and would be affected by directionality, but for the ones that are passing AC, the direction of the fuse should make no difference. |
Actually the point is that any way you look at it there’s a direction. If you put your fuse on the incoming signal, the field across the fuse will change from +120v to -120v every cycle It does help to look at it correctly however. A 120v circuit is not 120+/120- every cycle. That would be 240v. Do the math. Are they saying that ALL the fuse locations in a power amp are only passing current in one direction? That seems really unlikely. So let me get this straight. To you it seems more likely the signal is going both directions all the time and at once? Fascinating. |
George HifiFrom one thread, you've continued to put your foot in it, yet again. 7:55am 'you'll find all snake oil answers there.' You've attacked a lot of good people here today. The only reason someone behaves like this is if something is missing from their life. |
Again I state that arguing from the standpoint of common sense or sound engineering is pointless here. These people hear significant changes when a fuse is reversed. This in itself is remarkable just because a long period of time has elapsed in the reversal process - unless the device's cover is left off and the innards exposed, which is probably more damaging to the sound that the effects of the fuse. Of course their aluminum foil hats also affect the sound. |
jnorris2005 Again I state that arguing from the standpoint of common sense or sound engineering is pointless here. >>>>The reason it’s called common sense is because it’s so common. Thanks for playing anyway. |