[medium jim]

It would be nice if Mr. Van Alstine would chime in, as he has studied this issue, if I recall correctly...

Jim

[mfsoa]

And you would trust Frank to tell you what you hear?

[MaggiesAndCats]

Yes, Frank is a man of strongly held opinions.  I first met him in 1975 when he was working out of his Jensens' Stereo Shop.  I wish I had bought the linear tracking turntable he had modded, but time goes on.  I have still have the orginal AVA Transcendance preamp I had made out of my Pat-5.  I have a Harmon Kardon TT with his mods.

Still, my ears are the final arbiter for me.

Regards,

Steve

[medium jim]

Steve:

I believe that you think you are hearing a difference, but I truly suspect it is a case of placebo effect or confirmation bias, e.g., you were told to expect an improvement by installing them. 

The science doesn't add up, pure and simple.  Here's a well written blog, that uses logic and science to discuss the subject:

http://homethaternews.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html

I know a lot of this is subjective and not enshrined in tangible, empirical evidence...

Jim

[kevin360]

Steve,

It would be foolish of me to argue with your subjective opinion. As I have no experience with such fuses, I can only state that I am skeptical. I should also like to point out that we listen with our brains, not our ears (not an inconsequential distinction – an active (indeed, a creative) vs. a passive system). I read the ad copy – sounds really special, but it’s a little step along the way for the signal and into what does it get inserted? The ad copy suggests the foolishness of inserting a ten cent fuse in your expensive audio equipment, but they don’t seem to have a second thought about inserting a seventy-five dollar fuse into a ten cent fuse holder. 

I’m not using the stock fuses anymore either, but my replacements only cost about sixty cents each – Littelfuse Pico IIs. As the name ‘Pico’ implies, they are very small – much shorter fuse element than an AG style. It’s part of a circuit, and a very small one at that. Fuses, as Josh pointed out, do suffer non-linearity as the current through them approaches their melting point – I didn’t read anything in their ad copy that suggested that feature is changed in any way by their process.

My fuses are connected directly to the wiring behind the plates – no fuse holders required. They are twisted and secured with wire nuts – along with a little dose of Liquid Tin. Electrically speaking, it seems like an ideal scenario.

You mentioned that the fuses were about 2 ½ years old – had they been cleaned/reseated in that time? As someone who spent his working life as a technician, I regularly PM my systems – preventing contact rectification is one of the objectives, but that’s not really an issue with my fuse setup.

Please do not read any of the foregoing as an insinuation that you’ve wasted your money – not my intent. In fact, my first post in this thread could hardly be considered contrarian as it was the first response to an open question, and I merely wished to impart my opinion (phrased as such) to Hasse. My opinion and yours fall on opposite sides of a contentious debate for which I have no stomach. The world of audio is filled with such debates – we won’t settle this one here, and there’s really no need to try.

FWIW, the Pico II specs: http://www.littelfuse.com/data/en/Data_Sheets/Littelfuse_251_253.pdf

Alles Gute,
Kevin

[medium jim]

Kevin is more gracious that I am on this subject.  With that said, I too mean no disrespect or am implying that someone isn't hearing what they are hearing.  Nevertheless, the science just isn't there and again, much of what we hear cannot be quantified and is purely subjective. 

I go back to the premise that if a Amp, Speaker, DAC, Preamp, or otherwise designer or maker thought that they would make their product better, it would be in them.  I use Buss Fuses in all of my gear, that includes my guitar amps too. Why, because they're cheap and do what they are designed to do, protect my gear. 

Put a fancy French Chateau Mouton Rothschild Label on an decent bottle of wine and most will tell you it was the best wine they ever drank.  Put a label of a $20.00 bottle of wine on a real say 1982 Chateau Mouton Rothschild and they will tell you why it could be better.   

Bottom line, if the end user thinks they sound better, who am I to tell them differently. 

Jim

[Emil]

In case  anyone  was wondering.....

http://www.parts-express.com/wizards/searchResults.cfm?srchExt=CAT&srchCat=229&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=%2Bpico%20%2Bfuses&utm_campaign=G_Part_Terms_Broad&utm_group=PICO_Fuses_Broad&9gtype=search&9gkw=%2Bpico%20%2Bfuses&9gad=6868762873.1

Thanks Kevin. Going to look into this

[medium jim]

I too like Kevin's method of affixing them in my magnepan's.  Didn't think about radial fuses.  Much more secure to say the least, figuratively and literally.

Jim

[kevin360]

It ends up looking like this. If I blow a fuse, it will be a slight hassle to replace, but it's not really that big of a deal. Thus far, I've never blown a fuse. You can't actually see the fuse - swallowed by the opposing wire nuts. You do see something else that wasn't a factory item though - an RF choke (can't really say that it made an improvement, but I certainly didn't hear a change for the worse, so it stays).

[Davey]

Chokes and fuses and wire-nuts, oh my. 

Cheers,

Dave.

[kevin360]

Yeah, I know - the horror!

To make it even worse, I have no interest in replacing the stock connectors. Man, I'm a real sicko. Oh well, they make lovely music. What more could I want?

I should comment on the workmanship behind the panels - all first rate. I know I had some criticisms regarding the quality of a few crimps and what-not in my MMGs, but I found nothing to gripe about (so far) with the 3.7s.

Cheers,
Kevin

[Emil]

Kevin
Would you say the sonic benefits of using the pico fuses the same as bypassing the fuses altogether?
I did the fuse bypass with my old 1.6s and the results were more than just subtle

[kevin360]

I think the result from doing this depends on quite a number of factors – not the least of which is the condition of the contacts that were either omitted or replaced. In the case of these speakers, the spades had significant grip on the blades and the wires – and they are fairly new. I need to dig the fuse holders that I removed from my MMGs from their bin – I swear the holders in the 3.7s are different, and better (I did a destructive test on them and they all get a QC check from me ). It must be stressed that the results also depend upon the quality of workmanship executed by the hobbyist who decided to mess with what the factory did.

I was absolutely in love with these speakers before I decided to diddle with them. I’ve had them long enough that I’m not worried about warranty issues (still under warranty, or were, but a problem would have reared its head by now). I didn’t do it because I heard something unpleasing. I did it because it’s just one of those things I’ve always done – hell, I even made a career out of it (currently in the winding down stage). I do it because it’s fun. I do it because it satisfies me in a weird way.

I’m still in love with these speakers. They sound glorious and I finally nailed the bass a while ago when I added a Bryston 10B Sub XO to the mix. I can’t claim that I heard a dramatic improvement after tweezing them. I’m not sure I could hear any difference at all, but then memory is a tricky thing and I did them both at once and I hadn’t even listened to them the day I did it, blah, blah, blah…

I’d do it again – and I wouldn't do it differently (but I already mentioned that I’m weird). I just wish the ‘left’(with the tweeters to the middle of the room) speaker worked as cleanly. That’s the one in which the green wire was rather short. I couldn’t affix the choke to the rolled Dynamat – it hangs in ‘space’ neatly enough though. I guess I picked the ‘right’ one to open for a photo, eh?

Anyway, if you happen to have a speaker with a not-so-great connection that you fix, then I’d expect an audible improvement.

[kevin360]

Well, it seems my little experiment failed. The Pico II fuses are simply too fast. So, while I'm certain they afford the ribbons greater protection, they have a tendency to blow – about once every six weeks for me. I guess a full order of magnitude decrease in the melting time is a bit much, so I've decided to try some LittelFuse 874 Series pigtail fuses, which essentially split the difference.

In the meanwhile, however, I decided to walk the tightrope without a safety net: No guts, no glory – no fuses, no kidding. Before making any comments about sound quality sans fuses, I want to put some fuses back to hear if my initial opinion is correct. More to follow...

---

Anyone seriously considering HifI Tuning fuses should read the interesting thread a tech (Roger A. Modjeski) started in the Music Reference Circle.
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=105425.0
Apparently, they fail in the opposite manner in which my Pico II experiment failed – they don't open when they should. Based upon the information Roger provided, I'm tentatively willing to accept that they could improve sound quality because they avoid the non-linear behavior of a typical fuse by behaving more like a piece of wire. That's fine until the thing should open, but it doesn't. It seems the same benefit could be attained by simply bypassing the fuses. Roger's account indicates that the two activities are practically equivalent.

Caveat emptor!

[Emil]

Kevin
Funny you should mention blowing fuses.
I blew a midrange fuse on one of my 3.6s earlier today and have no idea why.
Fortunately, I never got around to bypassing the fuses. Who know what might have happened.

[josh358]

Well, it seems my little experiment failed. The Pico II fuses are simply too fast. So, while I'm certain they afford the ribbons greater protection, they have a tendency to blow – about once every six weeks for me. I guess a full order of magnitude decrease in the melting time is a bit much, so I've decided to try some LittelFuse 874 Series pigtail fuses, which essentially split the difference.

In the meanwhile, however, I decided to walk the tightrope without a safety net: No guts, no glory – no fuses, no kidding. Before making any comments about sound quality sans fuses, I want to put some fuses back to hear if my initial opinion is correct. More to follow...

---

Anyone seriously considering HifI Tuning fuses should read the interesting thread a tech (Roger A. Modjeski) started in the Music Reference Circle.
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=105425.0
Apparently, they fail in the opposite manner in which my Pico II experiment failed – they don't open when they should. Based upon the information Roger provided, I'm tentatively willing to accept that they could improve sound quality because they avoid the non-linear behavior of a typical fuse by behaving more like a piece of wire. That's fine until the thing should open, but it doesn't. It seems the same benefit could be attained by simply bypassing the fuses. Roger's account indicates that the two activities are practically equivalent.

Caveat emptor!

Interesting, I'd wondered about the Hi Fi Tuning fuses. I'd always been given to understand that the nonlinearity of a fuse was part and parcel of its acting like a fuse, so yeah, it makes sense. There's a site somewhere with plans for building a loudspeaker circuit breaker for those who are serious about avoiding the sonic degradation of fuses, but I think I'd want to verify that fuses do cause sonic degradation before I bothered making something of the sort -- after all, we rarely listen at the levels at which a fuse does become significantly nonlinear, and then only on peaks.

[kevin360]

How blown was the midrange fuse​? The nice thing about the clear glass ferule fuses is that one can see the element. You can tell something about what blew the fuse by the condition of that element – if there's just a small break in the fuse, it could mean that it protected you from nothing.

Josh is right; we only challenge these fuses on peaks, but my experience* with the Pico fuses suggests that we actually do push these fuses regularly. If I'm right about that, then two further possibilities exist: Maggies could sound better without fuses, and, assuming Roger's statements are true, they could likewise sound better with HiFi Tuning fuses. A fuse that is regularly pushed near its mechanical limits degrades over time and will eventually fail – with a very small break.

---

*As the Pico fuses are significantly faster acting, a condition that would merely induce the standard fuse to become mechanically squirrelly (and electrically non-linear) will quickly overwhelm the Pico. I'd hoped to increase the protection afforded by the fuses by decreasing their reaction time, but created a 'nuisance break' design instead.

The HiFi Tuning fuses apparently avoid the non-linear behavior by virtue of not becoming mechanically unstable when the standard fuse would, but that avoidance is delivered at the peril of the device it purportedly protects. Rather than install ineffective fuses, it makes more sense just to bypass them – costs less and results in a simpler circuit. The latter is probably safer in that one does not have the illusion of a safety net below one's feet, which will sharpen his attention on how he walks the tightrope.

Choose your poison wisely.

(Of course, bypassing fuses inside one's electronics is just asking for trouble. If installing a Tuning fuse is essentially the equivalent action, what does that suggest?)

[medium jim]

Kevin & Josh:

The Fuse in many X/O's are integral to the circuit and may affect the tone to a very slight degree, but is it worth the chances of damage?  With the amplifiers, there to the best of my knowledge is no direct link in the circuit other than to protect. 

I'm going to still argue that if there was any improvement in the sound, that it would behoove any high-end builder to utilize the tuning fuses in their product, but they don't.   This would infer that said tuning fuses are no more than pet rocks.

Jim

[*Scotty*]

Jim, a fast blow fuse acts as a thermally non-linear resistive element in the circuit. Its deleterious impact on the reproduction high frequencies is the most easily heard problem when it is used with in the context of a high resolution system.
 The easiest solution to the problem is to bypass the the fast blow fuse with .47ufd or 1.0ufd film capacitor which provides a low impedance path for high frequencies around the fuse. This also helps take the fuse holder out of the equation as far as the high frequencies are concerned.
 I bypassed the mid-range and tweeter fuse holders on my MGIIIs back in 1988 with .47ufd 200v polystyrene and tin foil capacitors. The improvement in the highs was obvious, improvements in the midrange were somewhat more nebulous.
 It isn't too hard to to do an experiment to determine whether or not a capacitor bypass of your fuses is worth while, of course as with all things audiophile YMMV.
 My current loudspeakers do not have fuses on the mid-ranges or tweeters, the speakers are protected by fuses in-line with speaker output terminals. Once again the solution to the problem is to bypass the the in-line fuse with a capacitor, in this case an 8ufd foil and film Hovland Musicap. See image below.

The key thing to remember is that a capacitor will not pass DC. If the fuse blows due to excess power through it the .47ufd capacitor will not pass a significant amount AC power down stream to the tweeter.
If a catastrophic failure occurs in the amp and the amplifier outputs the full DC rail voltage, the fuse once again blows and the capacitor does not pass the DC on to the tweeter.
The capacitor bypass of the tweeter and mid-range fuses allows you have your cake and eat too.
Scotty

[josh358]

Kevin & Josh:

The Fuse in many X/O's are integral to the circuit and may affect the tone to a very slight degree, but is it worth the chances of damage?  With the amplifiers, there to the best of my knowledge is no direct link in the circuit other than to protect. 

I'm going to still argue that if there was any improvement in the sound, that it would behoove any high-end builder to utilize the tuning fuses in their product, but they don't.   This would infer that said tuning fuses are no more than pet rocks.

Jim

I have no direct experience with this mod, so I don't have an opinion on whether and to what degree it affects the sound. Someday, maybe, I'll try it out of curiosity. But I don't really want to give up the protection. I used to blow fuses sometimes, and while I no longer listen at those levels, accidents are possible, and a melted tweeter or midrange would be a fairly expensive one. But, of course, YMMV. Mark Winey told me he's tried it on his own 3.7's, and that there was a small improvement in clarity. He gave the same advice we do on these forums -- that if you want to try it, you should get to know your system first, so you have confidence that you don't blow fuses. And Wendell Diller pointed out that not only is this damage not covered under the warranty, they can tell immediately what's happened. So the fact that the president of the company has done it isn't an excuse.