Are these HiFi fuses really any good ? Do they make your system sound better. Well I am very sceptical to say the least What do you think or even know that I dont ?
Great video. PS Audio did a video about fuses saying they can vibrate in the plug when playing music and this distorts the sound LOL. These experts talk a load of crap. 4k for a fuse, well if your silly enough to buy one well as they say more money than sence.
Reminds me of Peter Belt in the late 80's early 90's. Filing grooves in power pins, avoiding 4 points within a room, suggesting putting a sheet of paper under one leg of the couch, all pretty crazy shit. The placebo effect in hifi is the worst thing that a lot of people suffer from. Now, if you could cure that....
As long as you have a good fuse that is clean and making good contact then these are pure snake oil and only wish I thought of it. Good point about plug and wall socket
I know this fuse thing does seem ridiculous but I found a place on the internet that sold them on a sale or return basis. I had to give it a try, well I was very surprised at the significant improvement in sound quality. I may well get another one to try, but needless to say I would never have got one if it hadn’t been on a try before you buy basis. I don’t really buy any audio products unless I have listened to them first and the same goes for this type of tweekery.
Some suppliers simply buy in cheap fuses & treat them themselves with some secret process. Then sell them on for £70 each. They won't let on what this process is of course. It's a trade secret! 🙄 I've yet to see an explanation as to HOW these fuses are supposed to increase the quality of the audio. Suppliers simply say that they work, but don't say how or why. 🤔 As for the directional ones, the mains is ac anyway, the polarity alternates, so doesn't matter which way it goes. 🤷♂
They put mains through it to make it settle in then they zap it with a Tesla coil for a while ff you have valves youl know that a valve likes a tap know and then to take the build up on the mettle parts falll of it why old fashioned filament lights would burn btighter after you taped then or people wack there valve tv to make them work better but back to the Tesla coil I found out that if you get a valve or filament bulb a pace it against a plasma ball Wich contain test coils the vacuum in side glows and it slowly removes all black of the internal metal and brings it back to silver!!! So it probably does do something to I have the fuse
Try getting your electricity from renewable sources. The elevated state one enters knowing your system is being fed by the greenest sources is most inducive to relaxed, extended listening.
I regularly clean plug pins, the fuse holder, the fuse caps, the IEC socket pins and use Bussmann standard fuses, cleanliness is key to good sound quality.
When you clean fuse caps and plug terminals your reducing resistance. This is the same concept of the aftermarket fuses. I use Russ Andrews fuses and assure you they do provide benefit.
@@BoomerUKEngland if you alter the internal resistance of a fuse then you will alter the point of when it blows, so the rating of the fuse will be different.
Fuses aren't actually directional, but I still follow the arrow because of OCD. I only get the cheaper ceramic ones on Ali now, they're all made the same. I've bought some of the pricier ones as well and have mixed thoughts but would never pay over $3 again - I mostly just buy them to be a completionist. The people paying $300 per are insane and need to broaden their hobby.
After giving the AR purple fuse some additional burn in, I find it settling in quite nicely, I may change my opinion on them. The midrange is back, transparency is off the charts, the sound is huge.
It's a bit like those little pointy triangles you place on top of your speakers (like a Paperweight) that stop all the reflections in your room, take out all the distortion from every room in the house, dramatically improve the bass, makes the treble much clearer, you will be more attractive to the opposite sex when using these, they are made from real fairy tears with the wings removed, and cost £700.00 quid. I'll have two please.
I measured the 13A Orange from Synergistic (marketing) Research and two 13A fuses from plugs bought in screwfix, I am lucky as I have some reasonable test gear, like a 8.5 digit multimeter with direct calibration from the national physics Lab, 1GHz scope's , 2400 source meter, vector network analyser ect. There was no difference between the two, either at test current or when carrying current. It is just total bull. This said, it depends. Here goes. Something like say an old QUAD 405 amp. To make assembly easier the internal DC rails are fused on the amplifier PCB, _beteween the big 10,000uF caps and the circuit. Adding resistance (the fuse) between the low ESR caps and the circuit is pretty dumb, so if you could have a lower resistance fuse here it would reduce the PSU rail modulation when shifting significant current. But as for fuses in the mains, nah, thats stupid, unless you HiFI is junk that is.
Trying to keep a relatively open mind,i've played with some high end fuses.While i'd advocate a clean,low resistance contact,it's about as far as i'd be prepared to go. I'm not convinced by the high end ones and will happily live with one level up from bog standard using fuses with silver plated end caps,which have good low resistance and are much more realistically priced.The ability to pass current is more about the fuses amperage rating than anything else.Some have been known to use a higher rated fuse,but caution is advised in that instance.
I use a euro plugged set up Which don't use fuses it's why hifi company's sell the euro extension blocks in the UK the only fuse is in my dac case so to hear what a difference a theoretical most expensive fuse in the world would nearly sound as good as I bought a 6mm thick copper rod and cut it to the length of a fuse and polished it .sounded awesome compared to the fuse supled
I'm quite surprised you haven't heard of these Michael, quite a few people swear by them! I haven't tried any myself, but judging by the amount of different ones for sale, there seems to be a market. My very local high end hifi shop sells quite a few of them! I plan on trying some in the future, as long as they have a money back guarantee, which a few do I believe.😉 Talking about directional fuses, quite a few cable suppliers sell directional cables. The sparkies (and many others) you talked to will also say cables make no difference, but look at the market for them! I'll try most things as long as I can get my money back if I hear no difference, to me experimenting is all part of the fun 😉. I await the backlash, but please be polite about it guys 😉😘
You got me there. I guess I'm just a moron? I just can't believe all hi end audio companies like Jeff Rowland doesn't add the extra tiny cost into his products. Odd huh?
i love my hifi gear, but there is no way i will ever be tempted to try one of these fuses. its just manufacturers taking advantage of uneducated people. when i say "uneducated" i dont mean thick/stupid. just those that are not educated in electrics. not one of these manufacturers can provide any meaningfull evidence of any improvement in sound quality. as a previous commenter alluded to, by fitting a new (clean) fuse you are simply improving the connection. this, may help improve sound and i do mean "may". a few years back i was looking to upgrade my DAC. i loaned another unit to compare to mine and could not tell them apart! so for someone to try and tell me a fuse can make a difference, they're having a laugh. probably the best case of "snake oil" in the industry. plus, there was nothing in that fuse that could make it directional!! it winds me up, as people are getting ripped off, big time.
Surly the fuse's task is a safety issue and it's designed to break the electric connection to protect the equipment it is connected too.... Maybe I have that completely wrong ??
Just saw your video. I recently installed Synergistic Master fuses in my Cambridge Azur 851 N and a pair of Focal solo 6. OMG… sound is absolutely unbelievable!! I started gradually with ceramic uses, then the Synergistic orange fuses and then the Synergistic purple fuses. Each upgrade made a difference in sound quality. I would equate this to using a cheap Noma power cord as opposed to a high-quality power cord in your audio system. Also, everything runs cooler.
Ok first of all. You must know how electricity works. Long story short. Your gears cable is the first cable it sees, not the last. So fuse is the first thing in the line. I'm for no fuse but if you must, ok. And sand is for microphonics. And I guess the direction on the fuse is based on the iec configuration. And if that makes a difference it's because the construction of the fuse is different on each side. My guess and logic. Gold is purely for better connections and secure the surface of it. Does it sound different?! Yes! Is it worth it? Maybe! Depending on gear and ear. But my take on it. Remove fuse and make a pure connection instead.
Utter nonsense. Same with "audiophile power cords" (and, frankly, the majority of "audiophile tweaks"). Some people do literally have more money than sense, though, and a fool and their money are soon parted.
Well explained, thank you. Two things, 1- are these fuses good as fuses? I mean do they blow like they should. 2- Fuses in the signal path like I have in my Magnepan tympani 4a, could that make a difference?
Thanks for a well-explained demolition job on this weapons-grade woo, Michael! I'm horrified by the scientific ignorance prevalent in the audiophile community. When I was a kid in the sixties, electricity was clearly explained in a Ladybird book.
@@MichaelYatesI’ve tried them. They change the sound. I don’t think it’s always good either. How does it work? 🤷🏻♂️ beats me mate. I could show you easily if you were closer to me. Ive took one out of my dac cable because it introduced too much treble energy, again, how? I have no idea.
Fuses will not make a difference if you do not have a resolving system (speakers, amplifier, source unit and cables). I used Schurter SPT ceramic fuses (about 0.70 euro cost), sound was clean and a bit bright. I decided to byte the bullet and try a more expensive fuse from Littlefuse 285 series, they have gold plated end caps and cost about 13 euros each. To my surprise they made a difference, clear sound but smoother on the ears and the sound stage depth did improve a bit. I have even tried bypassing the fuse with copper foil, the sound was clear but very bright and aggressive, the sound stage did collapse a bit.
I use the Russ Andrews Superfuses, apparently they are based on silver plated BussMann fuses. They do alter the sound, apparently it's to do with reducing resistance in the fuse. I was skeptical also until I tried them. The difference they make can be shown very quick once your listening to a HiFi system and prepared to A / B with a regular standard fuse.
I experienced a sound improvement when swapping out fuses on the inside of a 1980s amp. Also experienced a change for the better soldering speaker cables direct to internals of speakers. Oh then there are cables ;)
I have consistently noticed improvements swapping internal AC fuses (vs a now phased out fuse), but tried only once to swap internal speaker output fuses and have undone that more or less immediately (those were AHPs) because it changed the frequency response very clearly for the worse.. ;) have to add results depend alot on brand/make, device, whatever, they are replaced with.
@@MichaelYates The thing is there are some hi fi nuts that are obsessed with purity. There was a guy in Japan that ran his entire hi end system using batteries so he had no electrical grid interference. I bet you couldn't hear a difference when you used the hi fi fuse. Oh well while there is a market out there people will try and sell anything. Whatever next ? 🤔
@@lewis72 i'm more of a x-ray tony or carlsons lab type of person, so something with a scope or LCR meter would be good. i'm not judging, i'm one of those idiots that thinks cables make a difference to the sound. and as for techmoan, if he can show that there's a difference then why not ??
@@garygranato9164 It all boils down to resistance, inductance and capacitance, doesn't it ? If those three are the same, then what else can influence the sound ? and that would only be for the cables carrying the sound signal. As for AC power, well, that has to be nonsense.
@@garygranato9164 My point is, with respect to cables, of the resistance, capacitance and inductance are the same then there can't be a measurable difference. Is it possible to measure everything that the human ear can perceive ?
