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Thanks for your reply. As I said, there are always elements in any industry who deserve to be considered with caution. I'm not taking some Pollyanna position of saying the the Holy Hobby is as pure as the driven snow. I find the paranoia and hyperbole exhibited in the post ( for example ) which I mentioned to be extreme and all too common on AC. Anyone who thinks that most of the audio industry is crooked should just move on to and take up another hobby before it slowly drives them mad. If you think the table is rigged, feel free to push your chair away, get up and leave. It's no wonder threads like these swerve in and out of the weeds of Quarantine until they finally get binned. They get used as a soapbox by people with agendas to push and it's always the same "they're out to get us and our money" nonsense proposing the existence of some industry-wide conspiracy to feed on the weak and the lame, excluding, of course, the few, the proud, the brave who, in the face of insurmountable odds, manage to fight the good fight in an industry more corrupt than Serpico could have withstood. You know, the guys that built my stuff, 'cuz I would never fall for any of the evildoing that is woven into the very fabric of audio, right? Malice and derision gets directed towards the dummies who "spend too much" on "the wrong things" according to the panel of self-appointed experts who always have the inside track, be it some tweak or cables or the"wrong" amplifier or speaker design or whatever else is the hobbyhorse du jour. Most of this has little to nothing to do with audio when all is said and done. As to who's to blame, it's certainly not the vast majority of people in this industry who are just doing a job. Why should those people get tarred with the same brush ? If audiophiles are supposedly insistently gullible and locked in a vain pursuit of status and ego gratification ( and by the way, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in finding that categorization to be both incorrect and offensive ), a fair number of them also seem to struggle with paranoid delusions of persecution and an unending compulsion to proselytize on behalf of their One True Faith. And it would be nice if they would get over it.And by the way, "most of the people in" ANY "industry are looking for your wallet", bardamu. What happens beyond that is pretty much up to you.D.D.
That's a very succinct summary of the problem with fuses. In some cases, for them to offer protection, they are forced to operate into their thermally reactive region. In some cases, that can have a sonic impact. This is the kernel of truth lying beneath the hype. In such cases, the solution is less likely an 'improved' fuse than it is an alternative device. There are other types of protection devices, some of which are resettable. In some cases, an acceptable solution is to discard the protection altogether – as with fuses which protect the drivers comprising one's speakers.Think about the problem with fuses as similar to that with MOVs, except that the latter can fail disastrously when forced to operate in a continuous manner as a voltage clamp (a reason to avoid 130V MOVs).Getting back to the fuses, I could not agree more with the criticisms of Tuning Fuses based upon their operation as protection devices. Extremism is rarely, if ever, accurate. It's also completely unnecessary.
A fuse under normal operating conditions is a direct short, not a resistor. Scotty is giving the fuse more qualities than are actually at play. I stand by the assertion that tuning fuses are junk science. Hopefully, Roger can weigh in and provide additional input.
A plea for someone to take on the task of honest review; or how do we go about reclaiming our hobby?One recurring theme I see in the current audiophile press is dismay over the direction to which “HI END” AUDIO is turning. If you go to my website you will see references to many articles which try to help the neophyte audiophile, spend his audio dollars wisely. Is it any wonder that when a normal well adjusted human being is introduced to our hobby, that they throw up their hands in dismay and run for the Bose boutique in terror, when confronted by a sales person who’s already convinced them they need a $10,000 plus system, who then tries to up sell them three to four thousand dollars of speaker, interconnect, and mains cables. In most cases all this person is looking for is a quality sound system to listen to music on.
A plea for someone to take on the task of honest review; or how do we go about reclaiming our hobby?The other article titled: ( http://positive-feedback.com/Issue74/fuses.htm )(HiFi Supreme and Audio Horizons' "Platinum Reference More Than A Fuse”) Fuses by Robert Youman.The definition of a fuse: ……a safety device consisting of a strip of wire that melts and breaks an electric circuit if the current exceeds a safe level. My complaint here is if you are reviewing a fuse shouldn’t you be testing this fuse for what it’s designed for? Actually stressing the fuse enough to cause it to blow. Then comparing the fuse to it’s specifications to see if it failed as it should have when it should have.If these products actually do their job as fuses, to protect the circuit they’re part of, then I would say that the verbiage used to describe how wonderful they are & the attributes they bring to the listening experience are warranted. But nowhere in this article does it even say what these fuses were designed for and what their specs are. Positive Feedback Online should be brought to task for the gross irresponsibility of publishing this review. Refer to Rogers post about tuning fuse from 2013. ( http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=105425.0 )
Hello George:I wrote a letter to the editors @ PFO with link to this post. You are absolutely correct a fuse is a safety device.In my opinion the specs for the fuse should be published along with the review of the dubious effect they have on the sound. Well that's not happening. All they yap about is how the imaging or bass response is improved. ..................................... FastfredP.T. Barnum said "there's a sucker born every minute"I'm not sure who said this "if you can't persuade them with logic, baffle them with bullish_t.
Thanks to all for keeping this thread going. I read the review and particularity take issue with the following statement. They are treated with 2,000,000 volts of electricity that Synergistic Research calls Quantum Tunneling. In addition, Synergistic Research claims that "a new treatment process applied exclusively to RED fuses realigns the crystal structure of both the burn wire and the end caps for a refinement in high frequency characteristics and improved timbre linearity".First at 30,000 volts per inch for the breakdown of air we a spark that will jump 67 inches. Perhaps they do it in a vacuum. Two million volts is not easy to obtain from anything but a Van de Graaffe generator and a small one only does 100,000 volts. The problem with voltage is also where do you apply it. Across the fuse is impossible, from the fuse to ground at 67 inches? What does elevating a fuse above ground do anyway. These are the claims we should be addressing as they are pure foolishness. How about one letter per volt to the editor stating how foolish that claim is.
Hmmm. 10audio.com also had a review on the Audio Horizons "More Than A Fuse" fuse. I believe Jerry Seigel was the reviewer and proprietor of said review website. That review was done this February. He actually put them in amplifiers. He has a link to the Audio Horizons website, but there is no mention of any fuses to be bought. Is all this a ploy to get people to advertisers websites?
Does Positive Feedback Online have a method for readers to comment on reviews? I see that Stereophile does and the comments are often answered by the reviewer or John Atkinson. If they do I would be asking the reviewer some questions which he might try to answer or forward to the manufacturer. I would really like to know about how the 2 million volts is applied. There used to be a way to report false advertising. is that gone too?
"2,000,000 volts, do they think all audiophiles are ignorant and stupid ?"Perhaps the terms ignorant and stupid are a bit strong. More like gullible. After all, as I wrote in another post on another thread here, audiophilesprefer to think of their hobby as more art than science. In fact I would go so far as to say all art and no science. Art is subjective and easier to understand than science, and it creates more excitement. To the growing majority of audiophiles science is dull. Proof is easily found in many of the threads on Audiogon. Which by the way has played a huge part in fueling the growth in the number of manufacturers, specifically the wire and fuse guys, that design and more importantly market their products first and foremost to the artsy audiophiles preferences as opposed to designing them to be safe and reliable. Just look at the nomenclature and vocabulary used in the hobby these days. Reviewers are part of the problem too as they feed the well audiophiles drink from. What we need to realize is that many manufacturers today are doing the simple thing from a business perspective. They are following the money. From the manufacturers perspective why spend time and energy educating the audiophile who is more than happy to throw money at products such as boutique fuses that use fancy marketing terms to describe their benefits. It's all about marketing which is easier for the "new breed" of audiophile to digest than science will ever be. Am I being a bit jaded here? I suppose so but then again I can look in the mirror and with some embarrassment say that I have fallen prey to such marketing tactics. That is until I met someone who has spent time educating me otherwise. Lucky for me my 401k is still fully intact. Like my mentor, we are lucky to have people like Roger who is willing to invest time and resources to educate. If only more people would listen and learn.
