High Quality Fuses: Real Gains?

Hmmmm. I put three of the original HiFi Tuning fuses in my integrated amp after blowing two of the stock fuses, and it made a noticable difference in that application. Less grainy. Just another system enhancement like better wires, isolation, placement, room treatments, etc. Everything is additive, although benefit of fancy fuses seems to be system, application and ear dependent. You could conceivably drop a lot on these fuses and not hear an appreciable difference. I would start with your amp and see what it does for you there.

Dogealum,

Your report indicates that careful evaluation by professional engineers showed them that these higher grade fuses do indeed change the performance of their equipment by making it sound "different", adding support to the notion that there is indeed a real effect. Furthermore, the engineers found that orientation of even off-the-shelf fuses was critical, consistent with the claims of HiFi Tuning which actually prints the desired circuit direction on their fuses. I have only very rarely read here or elsewhere reports that these higher grade fuses actually resulted in a reduction in sound quality or anything other than a perceived improvement in sound quality when end users applied them in their systems. As noted previously in the thread, my personal experience was that HiFi Tuning fuses provided a significant and noticeable "improvement" in the audio quality as perceived by me when used in my amplifier in place of stock glass fuses.

Your sharing of the comments made by the head of the service department of the high end manufacturer is interesting to me in other ways. Their perspective is similar to that of most manufacturers when it comes to aftermarket or upgraded power cords - they just don't come with. I have heard the same comments made by the service department head about fuses applied by industry professionals to aftermarket cords, essentially "they do sound different, just not necessarily better". I wonder if in the case of higher grade fuses, manufacturers are hesitant to break convention and design their gear around fuses that are only available from mail order specialty houses and cost tens of times more than standard issue, even if the higher grade fuses might be a little or even a lot better than the cheaper ones. If one of these fancy fuses blow and the end user replaces it with a convential product from the hardware store, there is a risk that the equipment may no longer perform to spec or expectation, a clear potential headache for the service department in the end.

My experience with power cords and HiFi Tuning fuses - applied at least to my amplifiers - indicates to me that next to room treatments and isolation, they are the most profound and effective tweaks I have tried, providing more sonic bang than new interconnects or speaker cables, and actually allowing me to better resolve differences in the latter two items when they are changed.