The Lemon Fool

I found these audiophile fuses. You can pay up to £8000 to replace a one-inch length of the circuit from the power station to your Hi Fi equipment with a fuse that will definitely improve the sound quality of your system, even if you absent-mindedly fit it in the plug of your toaster by mistake: https://www.futureshop.co.uk/brands-category/quantum-science-audio/qsa-uk-13a-fuses. Note the arrow — alternating current flows better if they are fitted the right way around.

If you want something cheaper, let me know and I will source the appropriate fuse from Screwfix or Farnell, and stick a coloured label around it. I offer these at half of the price of the QSA ones — just let me know what colour label you want. For £1000 extra, I will print the arrow with a point at both ends so you can fit it either way around.

HiFi Tuning offer these 20mm fuses for inside your equipment, https://www.analogueseduction.net/fuses/hifi-tuning-supreme-3-copper-slow-5-x-20mm-t-audio-grade-fuses.html. From this site,

the caps as well as the melting wire consist of 99% pure silver and 1% of gold...

Specifications:
Straight melting wire consisting of Cardas Low Eddy Copper...

Julian F. G. W.

(Off now to oil my snakes...)

Disappointing that the higher-priced items don't have any reviews. But the reviews for the lower-priced items are outstanding. Must try one of these with my crystal set. And maybe my bedside lamp.

--kiloran

They made my hi fi sound so much better

I think I have a few spares in a placky bag in a jam jar somewhere safe in the garage.

I used to make my own from tin foil but this saves me so much time.

Will my tea taste better if I get one for my kettle?


Julian F. G. W.

jfgw wrote:Will my tea taste better if I get one for my kettle?
Julian F. G. W.

Since they are audiophile fuses, the tea will not taste better, but the kettle will sound better

--kiloran

jfgw wrote:....Cardas Low Eddy Copper...

Wasn't he in that telly programme...? The one with the parrot?

jfgw wrote:Will my tea taste better if I get one for my kettle?
Julian F. G. W.

I can assure you that it will have exactly the same effect on your tea as it has on the sound from your HiFi.

jaizan wrote:

jfgw wrote:Will my tea taste better if I get one for my kettle?
Julian F. G. W.

I can assure you that it will have exactly the same effect on your tea as it has on the sound from your HiFi.

The tea tastes best with sounds from your formative years. And a slice of madeleine.

I've been trying to decide if this is just an April fool type wind up .... here's what one guy says about the merely £600 Synergistic Master Fuse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz6bhYtnt3A

mc2fool wrote:I've been trying to decide if this is just an April fool type wind up

I am not buying it. My AV engineer advocates using more expensive cables, such as better speaker wires or the low voltage cables that connect the separate components.

But I fail to see why the power cables going into the transformer are going to make any measurable difference. Seems to me a binary thing - they either work or they do not. My main concerns are a steady voltage, no outages due to fuses blowing and a surge protector for when the power does goes out for some reason.

Had I paid £1,000 for a special audio fuse, I'd be determined to hear an improvement in the sound!

Lootman wrote:

mc2fool wrote:I've been trying to decide if this is just an April fool type wind up

I am not buying it. My AV engineer advocates using more expensive cables, such as better speaker wires or the low voltage cables that connect the separate components.

But I fail to see why the power cables going into the transformer are going to make any measurable difference. Seems to me a binary thing - they either work or they do not. My main concerns are a steady voltage, no outages due to fuses blowing and a surge protector for when the power does goes out for some reason.

The Cheshire Audio guy in the linked to youtube went over to his mate's to see what difference the £600 fuse made and his mate also had him listen (separately) to the difference made by some new speaker cables that were "the price of a new small family car". How much does your AV guy recommend spending on speaker cables?

As one punter says in the comments, if a fuse makes so much difference then why not just eliminate any fuse protection in the supply to the hifi at all and just rely on the breakers in the consumer unit. Mind you, there's also plenty of comments ranting about how much better their hifi sounds with these fuses.......

More than fifty years ago, one of my fellow students at uni set out to build his own concrete loudspeakers. They were the last word in sound quality, apparently, but he knew it was going to cost him the equivalent of a year's living money to buy them, and he reckoned that a few quid's worth of rubble and cement would do the job just as well.

And so it did! Or at least, that was what he claimed. Our own ears had been detuned by many years of Led Zeppelin, but my friend with the classically-trained ears insisted that John Cage's 4'33 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3) had never sounded better.

All good things must come to an end, alas. His epic three-quarter tonne construction (eight feet tall) fell through the floor of his student flat and only just missed a downstairs bedroom. And his landlord was less than amused.

BJ

mc2fool wrote:

Lootman wrote:I am not buying it. My AV engineer advocates using more expensive cables, such as better speaker wires or the low voltage cables that connect the separate components.

But I fail to see why the power cables going into the transformer are going to make any measurable difference. Seems to me a binary thing - they either work or they do not. My main concerns are a steady voltage, no outages due to fuses blowing and a surge protector for when the power does goes out for some reason.

The Cheshire Audio guy in the linked to youtube went over to his mate's to see what difference the £600 fuse made and his mate also had him listen (separately) to the difference made by some new speaker cables that were "the price of a new small family car". How much does your AV guy recommend spending on speaker cables?

As one punter says in the comments, if a fuse makes so much difference then why not just eliminate any fuse protection in the supply to the hifi at all and just rely on the breakers in the consumer unit. Mind you, there's also plenty of comments ranting about how much better their hifi sounds with these fuses.......

A fuse can make a HUGE difference in an audio set up
- problem is if the twat that removed it to stop the ground loop doesn't remember (or bother) to put it back you've got a potentially fatal situation when whatever is providing the path to earth is taken out... next guy to take the mike will often serve as the conduit

Same with power supplies; I had to dig in to my bag of bits over the weekend. Clock noise from a digital effect coupling through the ostensibly isolated supply (I suspect with a common ground) in to an overdrive was painfully apparent during down time. Easily blocked with an inline choke.

The stuff in the OP though is borrox - but you can see why some fall for it. Not everyone understands what makes a cable better and I've seen some terrible claims

mc2fool wrote:

Lootman wrote:I am not buying it. My AV engineer advocates using more expensive cables, such as better speaker wires or the low voltage cables that connect the separate components.

But I fail to see why the power cables going into the transformer are going to make any measurable difference. Seems to me a binary thing - they either work or they do not. My main concerns are a steady voltage, no outages due to fuses blowing and a surge protector for when the power does goes out for some reason.

The Cheshire Audio guy in the linked to youtube went over to his mate's to see what difference the £600 fuse made and his mate also had him listen (separately) to the difference made by some new speaker cables that were "the price of a new small family car". How much does your AV guy recommend spending on speaker cables?

As one punter says in the comments, if a fuse makes so much difference then why not just eliminate any fuse protection in the supply to the hifi at all and just rely on the breakers in the consumer unit. Mind you, there's also plenty of comments ranting about how much better their hifi sounds with these fuses.......

Cannot recall exactly but a few hundred quid. It probably makes more sense to think of it in terms of a percentage of the cost of the entire system. So if you are blowing 20 grand on a high-end AV or hi-fi system then don't buy the cheapest cables thinking that they do not matter. A system is only as good as its weakest link.

So maybe 5%?

And I had a lot of components to connect: 6 speakers, a TV, a receiver, an Apple TV, a Blueray player, a Sonos, a modem, a router and so on. In that context a grand on wiring isn't outrageous.

Just not on a power cable and a fuse!

servodude wrote:A fuse can make a HUGE difference in an audio set up
- problem is if the twat that removed it to stop the ground loop doesn't remember (or bother) to put it back you've got a potentially fatal situation when whatever is providing the path to earth is taken out... next guy to take the mike will often serve as the conduit

Only if the fuse is in the earth.

I am guessing that you had a good week-end and that you have a few bags of empties to go to the bottle bank from after the barbecue.


Julian F. G. W.

jfgw wrote:

servodude wrote:A fuse can make a HUGE difference in an audio set up
- problem is if the twat that removed it to stop the ground loop doesn't remember (or bother) to put it back you've got a potentially fatal situation when whatever is providing the path to earth is taken out... next guy to take the mike will often serve as the conduit

Only if the fuse is in the earth.

I am guessing that you had a good week-end and that you have a few bags of empties to go to the bottle bank from after the barbecue.


Julian F. G. W.

This weekend was in a licensed premises (so they get to keep the money from the tins )

I'm guessing at some point the place had been approved by someone as safe for a public performance (it has a couple of band rooms that seem service most days) but sheesh some of it seemed helluva shonky - the audio guys were just out of school and had been roped in to help for the evening which added to the whole on the edge of collapse vibe (to be fair they dd a decent job once they'd tracked out which extension cord the desk had been plugged in to)

servodude wrote:to be fair they dd a decent job once they'd tracked out which extension cord...

What!!!??? I hope the wires in that extension were silver plated! What sort of fuse was in it?

If you look closely at the fuses I originally linked to, you can see brown markings in some of the gaps between the coloured tapes and the caps. For example, compare these two images,

https://www.futureshop.co.uk/quantum-science-audio-red-high-level-uk-mains-fuse

https://www.pat-testing-training.net/articles/fake-fuses.php


Julian F. G. W.

jfgw wrote:If you look closely at the fuses I originally linked to, you can see brown markings in some of the gaps between the coloured tapes and the caps. For example, compare these two images,

Julian F. G. W.

Well, yes, that makes sense, Why spend time and effort making a 13A fuse, when you can buy them ready-made, chant a magic incantation to give them stupendous properties and then resell for thousands.
Makes good commercial sense.

--kiloran

kiloran wrote:

jfgw wrote:If you look closely at the fuses I originally linked to, you can see brown markings in some of the gaps between the coloured tapes and the caps. For example, compare these two images,

Well, yes, that makes sense, Why spend time and effort making a 13A fuse, when you can buy them ready-made, chant a magic incantation to give them stupendous properties and then resell for thousands. Makes good commercial sense.

All these folks here taking jfgw seriously must have missed his signoff giveaway . . .

"Off now to oil my snakes".

He's having a laugh innit?