The Audiophoolery Thread.

[Beobloke]

Originally Posted by Sergeauckland

There's absolutely no way a fuse can affect sound quality.

S

That's not quite true. If you take the fuse out, I've found it affects the sound quality quite dramatically...

As to the reviewer and the fuse review, I expect he had his 'normal' fuse fitted in the plug the wrong way round, so wasn't hearing it at its full performance potential.

This can be a major problem for products from those rubbish fuse manufacturers who don't specify the correct direction of fitment on their products. You know, small amateur outfits like Cooper Bussmann, Littelfuse and Siga...

[Radio Wrangler]

This isn't a problem, this is an opportunity! - to market a new range of audiophool 13A plugs and fuses where the fuses have different diameter connections at the two ends and cannot be fitted the wrong way round.

Of course, they would be more expensive...

David

[lightning]

What happens to the electrons that can't squeeze through an "ordinary" fuse. They must go somewhere.

[Craig Sawyers]

What is missed in the directional fuse claptrap, is this.

Apart from the electrons shuffling back and forth very slightly, they are in constant random motion at the Fermi Velocity. For copper that is about 1.6 x 10^6m/s (about half a percent the speed of light). It is only weakly dependent on temperature, although in practice at room temperature this high speed random motion of electrons interacts with the metal lattice in scattering events. At room temperature the mean free path for Fermi electrons is around 10 atomic diameters.

Because this effect due to electron gas behaviour is Quantum in nature - well you can see where I'm going with this....

Craig

[Craig Sawyers]

The lowest Fermi Velocity is for Cesium (0.75 x 10^6). Now there would be a short lived fuse!

Craig

[Beobloke]

Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers

Because this effect due to electron gas behaviour is Quantum in nature - well you can see where I'm going with this....

Craig

You need Quantum fuses?

[GrimJosef]

Would quantum fuses be both blown and unblown at the same time ?

Actually, since quantum mechanics is real, are regular fuses in a superposition of blown/unblown states and it's only the act of observation (seeing the panel lamp come on) that collapses the wavefunction ?

Cheers,

GJ

[RichardGM]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

You can actually get measurable distortion from fuses in power amp outputs due to the fuse wire temperature changing and hence its resistance. Due to the time-constants involved this is a low frequency effect.

Changes in demanded current through AC mains fuses will be filtered further by the reservoir capacitors, and so any non-linearity through heating effects in the AC fuse are pushed down to still lower frequencies. If any significant effect remains, there will be worse effects due to the loading effect on the charge in the reservoirs. Also acting to reduce the effects of fuses in the power supply (including DC ones on the way from the reservoirs to the power amp circuits, will be the PSRR (power supply rejection ratio) of the power amp. At the lower frequencies where fuse resistance modulation can happen, PSRR is usualy at its highest as the feedback has its greatest loop gain and can do its best work in correcting impairments.

David

Increased current causing the fuse wire to get a little hotter and therefore to increase its resistance is surely a second-order effect compared to the increased current causing the supply voltage (mains or secondary) to drop. As long as the supply rails are far enough away from the audio peaks, the exact voltages on the rails should have minimal effect on the signal, even before the application of negative feedback. On the other hand, the psychlogical aspects for perceiving that A is better than B are well established.

[Vintage Engr]

From what I'd read over the years on this thread, I had wrongly assumed that the crazy prices demanded for dubious products, were purely online...
How wrong I was. Having had some time to kill in town today, I window-shopped in a local Hi-fi shop.

Nice to see a 6 way 13A distribution mains block at a mere £625. I obviously need to upgrade my various turntables, & I note that for between £15,000 to £25,000 I can procure a suitable replacement!
Don't even ask the price of the 'RCA' phono leads....

I guess the public must buy this stuff, otherwise the shops wouldn't still exist on the high street.

David.

[Radio Wrangler]

A bricks and mortar phoolery shop... wow!

Do they have a raised step at their door to stop all the fairy dust washing out into the street?

They would seem to be quite vulnerable to people laughing in their faces if the general public with fleshy ears wandered in, and this could be bad for their fragile egos.

Back in the eighties, I once went into a shop in Edinburgh which I was told kept spare belts for my Rega turntable. I went in without knowing of the nature of the place... Russ Andrews. I still smile whenever I recall the meeting. I did buy a belt, and the price was quite reasonable. Maybe this was before he found his calling?

David

[Craig Sawyers]

It has ever been thus.

In the late 70's there was a shop in Chandler's Ford near Southampton called Hampshire Audio. Above the front door was the Latin motto Experto Crede - which means Believe the Expert. That kind of summed the place up. The only thing I could afford from this hallowed cave was a pickup arm headshell.

Still exists in the same shop front, but now called Audio T.

Craig

[Radio Wrangler]

The problem with experts is that there are so many of them and many are mutually contradictory (some are even self-contradictory)

In order to decide which to believe, you have to know the subject well enough to be able to sort it out for yourself, without needing an expert at all. The sting in the tail is that in doing so, you also become an expert, and, therefore, no-one needs you.

Ooops!

David

[wd40addict]

If you're not sure what to tell your loved ones to buy you for Xmas: https://www.futureshop.co.uk/entreq-magneus-supreme-emf-transformer

[Malcolm G6ANZ]

A piece of plywood with a hole in it. And probably a couple of magnets.

[Radio Wrangler]

It also serves to replace your entire amplifier..... what was that quote?

"A piece of plywood, with gain."

David

[Analogue man]

I've just read that add - what a lot of C!

[Uncle Bulgaria]

Would Trading Standards be interested in any of this stuff?

[Welsh Anorak]

I suppose it depends on their abitlity to keep a straight face.

The get out clause is "When used in the right place..". It doesn't work? Wrong place, sir...

[Uncle Bulgaria]

Ah yes, the customer is always right unless he's wrong...! There's a whole world of psychology out there.

[Sergeauckland]

Originally Posted by Welsh Anorak

I suppose it depends on their abitlity to keep a straight face.

The get out clause is "When used in the right place..". It doesn't work? Wrong place, sir...

There are so many weasel words used in these adverts that Trading Standards or the Advertising Standards Authority don't have much to go on. I was pleased to see that some years ago, the ASA did require one such advertiser to change their claims as they couldn't be substantiated, but that's rare.

S.