Ceramic Fuses

[PHC1]

Funny thing is one of my Lamm M1.2s blew a fuse once. Not having a spare one, I bought one at the Rat Shack. Without even giving it a thought, I noticed the system didn't sound right until a replacement fuse came from Lamm and everything was back to normal. I'll see if I can get a pair of "HI-FI Tuning" fuses and give them a try to see if anything changes.

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by gregswaim

Today I received some after market ceramic fuses to try out in my McIntosh MC2102 & MA6500 amplifiers.
The factory stock fuse for my MC2102 is : T 6.3A 250V- I've replaced it with a ceramic T 4.0A 250V fuse.
The factory stock fuse for my MA6500 is: T 10.0A 250V- I've replaced this with ceramic T 5.0A 250V fuse.

I noticed a immediate & big improvement in the overall sound of each one of my amplifiers!

Greg.......Bussman ceramic fuses are a common stock item for almost all electronic and electrical supply houses nationwide. Products - Wholesale Electrical Distributor, Summit Electric Supply Summit Electric supply is just one of many. Graybar, Hughes Supply, Grainger, Rexel Consolidated, and others come to mind.

I am curious, why did you replace the MC2102 and the MA6500 with smaller rated fuses than the factory rating for overcurrent protection?

[gregswaim]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Greg.......Bussman ceramic fuses are a common stock item for almost all electronic and electrical supply houses nationwide. Products - Wholesale Electrical Distributor, Summit Electric Supply Summit Electric supply is just one of many. Graybar, Hughes Supply, Grainger, Rexel Consolidated, and others come to mind.

I am curious, why did you replace the MC2102 and the MA6500 with smaller rated fuses than the factory rating for overcurrent protection?

I did this on a recommendation from Creston. Apparently, someone somewhere had do lots of A/B comparisons with a wide variety of fuses and found that the ceramic variety made the sound better and going for a lower rating further improved the sound beyond that point. It was also noted that the ceramic fuses are directional like speaker cables & IC's ect. I've confirmed the directional part as one way clearly sounds better than the other. It does not hurt anything by going to a lower rating as this tends to overprotect the circuit, going the other way could really harm your equipment though.
Funny enough, those expensive audiophile variety ceramic fuses didn't do as well as the mass market Buss variety did. Keep in mind that I didn't take part in all of those A/B comparisons, I'm just taking the advice from someone who has experience with such things & I'm very pleased with the results.

[jdandy]

Greg.......I hear chanting, distant drum beats, and a faint cry every now and then, coming from the direction of Austin.

[jdandy]

There might be something in the water there. You may want to go back to the Linn Tonic.

[gregswaim]

I know this stuff about fuses/ceramic fuses sounds goofy Dan but it does work.
Maybe one day you'll try it & see for yourself.

[jdandy]

Greg.......I may try some Bussman ceramic fuses just to satisfy my curiosity. I have a real hard time with the directional claim, which is why I called on the wizards. Alternating current changes polarity 60 times a second. The direction of the voltage flow, and the current rating of the fuse should be irrelevant.

[gregswaim]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Greg.......I may try some Bussman ceramic fuses just to satisfy my curiosity. I have a real hard time with the directional claim, which is why I called on the wizards. Alternating current changes polarity 60 times a second. The direction of the voltage flow, and the current rating of the fuse should be irrelevant.

Doesn't Wireworld have directional arrows on their IC's & speaker cables?
Like I had stated earlier, I don't know how it works.
If you get some of these from Austin Hi Fi it won't cost you anything because they're free.
You'll see what I'm talking about regarding the directional thing once you have a chance to try them out.

[jdandy]

Greg.......The Wireworld interconnects I use are balanced. They can only be connected one way. No need for arrows. I don't use Wireworld speaker cable, so I don't know if arrows are printed on their insulation. I have heard of grain orientation when copper is extruded and drawn through dies to create various gauge wire dimensions. Perhaps this may have something to do with direction of voltage flow, but I am not positive.

I remember when Monster use to print arrows on cable insulation of their unbalanced interconnects. They may still do it, I don't know. This was so the shields, which were soldered to the negative conductor only at one rca connector and floated at the rca connector on the other end, would all be plugged into the preamp, and floating on the source ends. It had nothing to do with the voltage direction of the audio signals. I have seen other manufacturers who do the same thing if the cable is unbalanced and shielded. This is done so that any induce votage in the shield is drained to ground at a single point on the preamp, and not fed into source components.

[gregswaim]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Greg.......The Wireworld interconnects I use are balanced. They can only be connected one way. No need for arrows. I don't use Wireworld speaker cable, so I don't know if arrows are printed on their insulation. I have heard of grain orientation when copper is extruded and drawn through dies to create various gauge wire dimensions. Perhaps this may have something to do with direction of voltage flow, but I am not positive.

I remember when Monster use to print arrows on cable insulation of their unbalanced interconnects. They may still do it, I don't know. This was so the shields, which were soldered to the negative conductor only at one rca connector and floated at the rca connector on the other end, would all be plugged into the preamp, and floating on the source ends. It had nothing to do with the voltage direction of the audio signals. I have seen other manufacturers who do the same thing if the cable is unbalanced and shielded. This is done so that any induce votage in the shield is drained to ground at a single point on the preamp, and not fed into source components.

Ivan(Masterlu) had sent me a set of Wireworld Sliver Eclipse 5.2 1.5m RCA's for demo( no comment as to their performance in my systems) and printed on those RCA's were directional arrows. FYI.