Fuses

I dont buy Bilstein shocks to fit anywhere, nor silver fuses, no one will ever see them but me... :Lplates:

 

why don't some of you get off your bums ...take a little look in your fuse holders and if ...note the if either the fuse holders or the fuses look anything other than bright and shiney..clean them
you may get some idea into the effect these fuses have.

now there'll be someone come along and say it makes no difference ... Well IMO that just means your system may have problems else where.....

But were not taking about chalk and cheese here its that last few parts of a percentage point of performance.... a bit like the difference between f1 cars from diffrent teams...

do we need to discuss a little science.....

all copper tin iron salts are none conductive, and all silver salts are ...

so if your fuse has an invisble coating of oxide, sulphide, nitrate whatever and your not [guess what ] using silver fuses there will be a partial barrier or diodic effect to the electron flow ....

go on trust your ears not your dogma

 

Pete, this isn't about dogma, but the lack of tolerance of opposing views.

 

dogma seemed a good word ......but

whatever......I'm just offerering a way to settle the issue ...

those that can ,can and those that can't well they don't need to be too picky on their next upgrade.....

but seriously it's easily demonstrated, if you gear has the resoluton...[not a slight on those that can't hear it]

where the issue?

the effects are similar to cleaning the pins of your mains plugs.

don't take my word prove it for yourselves.

 

I often find it is the people with poor systems that go mad for these kind of tweaks.

 

It is the ones that think they have good systems that dont try, nothing makes any difference on their systems anyway...

 

Nerr nee nerr nerr

 

Hmm, I've no idea what has been posted and then edited but for the record, yes I have tried all of the things that I would dismiss here as audio trickery.

I've played with fuses, twisted bits of 'polarised' spiro-tube from Peter Belt around my cables, built more varieties of cable than I can remember, suspended cables around the house on bits of string, tried all sorts of platforms, cones, spikes, painted my CD edges green, even painted the edges of my vinyl green!
I've been there, got the mug, T shirt and the video.....

Anyone worried about corrosion on fuses need simply rotate the fuse a few times in the holder which will scrapre down to fresh metal. Those worried about mains, phono, din, XLR, or bnc connectors simply need to remove and re-insert a few times every three months or so. Again, this will scrape down to fresh metal.
All of this avoids the need to add an extra layer of metal and saves the end user a good deal of cash. Naturally, this view is not popular with inveterate tweakers or manufacturers of expensive cables and accessories. Go figure.....

I clearly take a different view to many people here on these things but I'm certainly not alone and that voice and view needs to heard IMO. I believe that I've stated my view without insulting anyone, so whats the problem?

 

With respect, Mr. Z., you should take your own medicine. This is a hopeless oversimplification. Copper oxide is in fact conductive (not as conductive as the metal, naturally, but conductive nevertheless). Silver oxide, on the other hand, is a very poor conductor (thankfully it never forms outside laboratories - the familiar tarnish on silver is the sulphide).

 

tones...not everyone has the same level of technical expertese as yourself.

I agree its a dreadful over simplification but did you miss the term diodic ? or partial conductive ......and even your quote says a little science. If people want more its only a google away.

please reread and consider a thirty page treatise on metal salts would not be welcome on the forum.

tenson ...

are you saying that simple curcuit changes have no effect to the sonic charactor of a unit ?..............

rob

mostly agree..... but its ask quick to remove the fuse and clean as it is to turn.

but none of you have even bothered to try it!

As I said why not try it before you dis it.....

the trouble is that now you've all opposed it......even if you heard a change would you report back that you had ? too much of a climb down I think

So lets first all go and clean the pins to the wall sockets, fuse and sockets......then report back.

I use duraglit wadding, and in bad case a dremel with diamond polishing bit. You can get a near mirror finish on the brass pins of three pin plugs. As an aside conduction appears to occurs from a point or edge, not the flat face, so make certain the edges of the pins are sharp and even.

Regardless of the naysayers.....this is demonstratable,many people have done it, in different systems and so should be audible to all. In the same way and scale as a change in rca phono plugs make...ie from a neutric ny to say an eichmann silver bullet....though I suppose there are some that will say that makes no difference either.

For those that can't hear it, I'm very sorry your missing a treat, but doesn't meant the effect is not there. Its just you can hear it for whatever reason.

 

re polishing: i recently did it in stages.

bear in mind all my amps, pre and two monos are 6 years+ and never cleaned to my knowledge.

i polished all my plug pins 5x plugs amps_ cd + 6 way distribtuion block.

change noticed: maybe a tiny perceptable increase in clarity.

i then did all the plug fuses and internal fuses, 5 x plugs and 2 x internal fuses.

change: an obvious increase in clarity.

i then did all my rca plugs and connectors: bear in mind all my rcas are solid silver plugs.

change: none zip nada absolutely nothing..

so in my system and to my ears there were small gains to be made wholesale over the entire process, but in scale of effect they were no more in total than changing my cd-pre IC from crap copper to 5n silver+ silver plugs.



to put this in perspective,changing the house supply inlet fuse to 100amp and using a dual busbar for the mains wrought an improvement as siginificant as my last amp upgrade, which was pre and integrated to better-pre and monos.


however the most significant change i've yet had from a single upgrade was adding a silver power cord onto my old integrated, back in the day before i had the pre-amp. that was absolutely night and day...

so it's fair to say these things are hugely system dependant

 

Thought I was going to be on my own there.....so its not just my imagination.

As sq225917 says its small but worthwhile and not to be ignored if you'vedone everything else.

 

Funny that this subject should be rasied, Last year I cleaned all the Power Plugs Fuses and 6 Way board, using clit bang and Kontac.
IMO it was a worth while tweek, resulting in a clearer sound, it is however small tweek, but as Zanash has already pointed out, you should try it out and report back. It wasn't so long ago that the general opinion was, if you purchased a New Power cable for your Amp/CDP then you must be insane! How times have changed!

 

I think it makes a small difference and is worthwhile, even if it is a total waste of time it is free and will take you 10 minutes max.

another one to look for is different rated fuses when using monoblock amplifiers, I just tried a 3 amp in one and a 13amp in the other and it made a small difference in volume from one speaker to the other.
(well in my head it did)
try it and see...

 

the same could be said for acoustic room treatments....

 

....except that the effects of those are easily measured.

 

My missus wants to know if you can buy it in Asda

 

Indeed, if you have a great room even a budget system can sound fantastic.

 

if cleaning contacts makes no difference then why do valve amps rustle and make nasty noises when the valve pins get dirty?

also if you test different fuses with a component bridge they come up with different capacitance. so I guess it could be measured.

but as every one says it is only a small difference.

 

I think the main point is that it is not in the signal path. All it has to do is supply voltage and current to the unit. As long as the connection is not intermittent or really, really, bad then it will have no effect on the purity of the mains. If there was any meaninful resistance at the contact points your plugs would be getting warm.