Is $2,844 too much to pay for a fuse?

... hence my suggestion for Graphene Contact Enhancer from madscientistaudio.com. 

Fuses are there for a reason! I've never bypassed a fuse, even briefly for testing, nor do I intend to. I know some can't wrap their brain around the idea, but I think it’s possible to treat a fuse in some way, and have it actually sound better than no fuse. I’ve never tested this myself, so I have no way of knowing for sure. Feel free to call me crazy (I'm sure some will, regardless😉)

Anybody receive one from Tweek Geek this week? I have a light blue for my dac and a yellow for my amp coming Monday. 

I will be receiving a blue for my amp on Monday or Tuesday. Can’t wait!

$2844 is not enough. My mapman funky fuse will be coming out soon for $4823 and it will be 4X as good. Just don’t open up or warranty voided. ALso if it blows properly when it should no free replacements on a costly-to-make 5K fuse.  THere is expensive stuff inside though so a local scrap metal yard might offer a good price for a blown funky fuse.

All this negative jibber jabber and no one has climbed up the color ladder and demoed these fuses. 

Talk is cheap.

I went yellow today and if it’s killer I will do purple.

I will keep climbing the color chart until the increase of SQ stops.

$2.8K is worth it if you have the funds and it delivers the goods.

I drive a beater Toyota Tacoma 2001 with 239,000 miles and I could not care less what I drive from point a to point b.

wife has a new car 😂

audio to me is much higher on my Priority list than a vehicle.

you negative dudes on this thread have car payments 🤓

Oh yes glory, we’re all idiots because we don’t prove our love of music by "investing" (or is that blowing?) a few grand on a fuse. I feel so stupid!

I  had a chance and tested a few ranging from yellow version and some higher priced mixed colour/crystal series fuses.

They were compared to an Orange fuse i had in place and at the $200-300 priced fuses have improved on the Orange.

Namely, what you get is a clear level up in clarity and detail, good neutral midrange and more layering.

It also seems to clearly looks that the end caps are rhodium type plating, which certainly would contribute to this improved clarity, Furutech fuse like, but without the slight brightness of the Furutech's.

At these price range, they are very good, no i did not get to test the $2,844 fuse and would not want to.

It it as good as expensive cables? i would say the $300 range fuse did add to the clarity and resolution wise, but find that it vneutral and may lack that very special "sonic contribution" which some "holy Grail" top end cables can provide if the systems sonics characteristics synergise giving a spectacular sound. Some may see this as a colouration, but all cables do have some form of positive or negative colouration and presentation.

Tacoma w 230 k is not even broken in yet, expect better low end grunt and extension as the rings finally seat, notes may take on a blue tinge as valves find their own guides…
no car payment:-)

No car payment here, and no house payment either. Fuses, here we come. :-)

Frank

54,

I didn’t label the Eeyore’s here as idiots.  Maybe bottom feeders but not idiots.

Try the blue fuse if you squeak when you walk.

oregon,

Living the life with no debt, go purple to start or yellow.

• "Living the life with no debt, go purple to start or yellow."

A "Yellow" for the line stage has been ordered.

I just ordered a yellow fuse for my Lumin X1. It will replace a Synergistic orange. 

ozzy

$2844 is not enough. My mapman funky fuse will be coming out soon for $4823 and it will be 4X as good. Just don’t open up or warranty voided. ALso if it blows properly when it should no free replacements on a costly-to-make 5K fuse. THere is expensive stuff inside though so a local scrap metal yard might offer a good price for a blown funky fuse.

👍
And don’t forget.


To those "non technical" members that are interested, do not listen to fusers, listen to the techs of this industry that design the audio products.
AND YOU WON"T SEE THEM ON THREADS LIKE THIS AGREEING WITH WHAT THESE FUSERS ARE SHILLING

Just clean and tighten your fuse holder and re-new your fuse (if old) with a good quality 50cent Bussman, Littlefuse or similar.
As with "many switch-on surges" they do deteriorate, bend, stretch and get crusty with electrolysis formations on their fusible wire elements before they give out, as these pics show of a fuse wire element ageing over time show. https://ibb.co/9NbTwqK
(even the $$$ boutique ones will age just as much also)

Cheers George

I have one simple word for Georgie .... Yawn! 

No car payment or house payment either.
But, there is the wife...

ozzy

Ozzy,

Oh, the wife 🥸

Now that’s a buy stopper. Underground transactions help. The wife will bring you down to the color Blue and not Red Black. 😢

GHifi,

The red black fuse installed into my X2 was the biggest, besttest and greatest tweak I’ve ever experienced in my 175 years in audio. I’ve had all the SR stuff and the wavy wood sticks, super tweeters but nothing can keep up with this Red Black fuse.

Now I know you won’t sleep tonight having blown your fuse for reading this. Waiting for your next positive post on the Red Black in my system that goes for $2.8KKK two thousand eight hundred GHifi. 🤓 sleep tight .

ozzy ...

• No car payment or house payment either.
• But, there is the wife...

I had the same problem. Then one day, she said: "If you come home with one more record, I'm going to leave you!" You know Ozzy ... I kind of miss her sometimes. 

Frank

The red black fuse installed into my X2 was the biggest, besttest and greatest tweak I’ve ever experienced in my 175 years in audio.

You really are https://youtu.be/YTY26k0CA0I?t=4

Frank,
I know what you mean. I keep leaving the door open, but she keeps coming back!
Must be my charm...

ozzy

Papa,ozzy,

Your last posts were hilarious.

I’ve been married 45 years, happily married about 6 months!
One more;
Just think, I’ve been married so long that I could have been out of jail/prison by now!

ozzy

Hind site ozzy, same here 47 years last Feb. I hate to say almost 48 it's even longer.. She keeps asking why is there a Taxi outside. I keep saying one of us has to go.. The stereo won't fit in the cab.. Hint hint!!!

:-)

45 years = a red - black fuse for your whole system.

Hennie Youngman said it best ... "Now then, take my wife ... PLEASE, take my wife!"

" I’ve been in love with the same woman for 41 years if my wife finds out she'll kill me!"

"Someone stole all my credit cards, but I won't be reporting it. The thief spends less than my wife did."

"We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops."

"My wife and I went back to the hotel where we spent our wedding night. Only this time, I stayed in the bathroom and cried."

"She was at the beauty shop for two hours. That was only for the estimate."

Okay, back to praising and bashing fuses. 

Frank

One more...
What do you call a woman who loses 75% of her intelligence?
A widow...

Anyway, I just ordered a couple more yellow fuses for my amps. Hopefully I will get those by the end of the month. My first yellow fuse is do to arrive Friday for my Lumin.

ozzy

😂😂😂

Don’t let your ladies see what you wrote here.

I like Yellow. 4 into my Antipodes EX CX.

glory,
She has heard it all before, and she has her own zingers too!

ozzy

So I received my first yellow fuse for my Dac.

First minutes of listening, its just ok. Actually, I don't think it is any better than my SR orange. But that fuse was treated with the High Fidelity 1260 contact enhancer. And perhaps I was expecting more based on all the chatter.

I have 2 more yellows to receive for my amps, so we shall see.

ozzy

Frank- That calls for a toast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxC-ynRZoDg

The Expensive Quantum Science Audio fuses are A LOT BETTER !.. 

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/qsa-my-take-on-their-expensive-products.33833/

If you have it, flaunt it!

And why stop at one fuse?

I bought a NOS fuse on a lark from NASA that is said to have been spares for the Apollo 14 mission. Not sure if it was used on a mission or was just left over but it was sourced from Cape Canaveral. Put in it in a McIntosh amp. Really added more space around the instruments to any type of music once installed. 

 

I started reading this forum when I began researching audiophile fuses. This and a few other forums got me really excited about QSA fuses and the impact they have on any component that requires a fuse. It was really hard for me to comprehend why so many individuals had such a negative opinion about a fuse they hadn’t tried. I admit, I could find any information about what is in each fuse or why they are different from any other audiophile fuse (bottleneck mitigation) All the forums I read, those who purchased any color QSA fuse, experienced majot sound quality improvements. 

After a few back-and-forth emails with Mike from TG, I decided to purchase a Yellow fuse for my Atoll IN300 and one for my SBooster that is connected to my Qutest. As soon as I put them in, I heard an improvement in sound quality. From talking to Mike, I knew the sound quality would improve over the next 24-48 hours. Well, Mike was not wrong and the sound quality kept improving until both fuses were fully broken in. I could go into all the improvements I heard, but fortunately, many on this post have already detailed the improved sound quality the fuses make. During my 30 day trial, the Synergistic Research Purple fuse hit the market and I read all the many positive reviews written about them. SR was offering the same 30 day trial, so I ordered two of them to do an a/b test. I have to say, the Purple fuse is very nice and sounds great, but for the same price, the QSA Yellow is a much better fuse. I sent the Purple fuses back. 

So, after a few weeks, I decided to buy four Blue fuses to put on the board of my Atoll IN300. Knowing the fuses are directional, I was having a hard time getting them correct. I reached out to Steve Tsang Yick Man from QSA and he took the time to work with me to get all of them in the right direction. He didn’t have to do that,  especially for the second cheapest fuse they make, but he did. Wow, another improvement which was way beyond the price I paid for the fuses. Currently, I’m upgrading the Yellow fuse in the Atoll IN300 for a Violet. The new fuse should be here in the next few weeks. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited. 

I have no idea how or why these fuses work. I know there are different sizes of black stickers on the outside of different colored fuse and I’ve heard there are stones on some of them. For those who haven’t tried them, I agree, I would be skeptical too. But TG will give you 30 days to play with them and if you don’t like the fuse for any reason, you can send it back, no questions asked. In that case, if you have discretionary funds, why not try one out and if it doesn’t work or you cannot hear an auditable difference, send it back and tell us believers, we are crazy and full of crap. But if you don’t give them a shot, I believe you are missing out on major sound improvement at a very affordable price (you don’t have to buy the $10k fuse to experience improved sound quality). These fuses have improved and brought to life all the other tweaks I’ve made through the years to my system. I’m getting the most out of my interconnects, power cables, and linear power supply. I’m really excited to buy a QSA receptacle later this year. I might not understand how these fuses work but I know I hear a major difference after I put them in. 

Thats a RIPP OFF!!!

For me, no way in the world! For Jeff Bezos, sure, why not.

$2,000 plus for a fuse, well I guess it has more parts than a preamp at $2,000 or an Amp at $2,000. Speakers perhaps at $2,000. Must be the cost of the design of the circuit board perhaps or the cost of the tubes used in the preamp that makes it $2,000 plus. Fuses must have a lot of cost in building them...smile!  

I’d be curious if one disguised and regular old 10 cent fuse as a $2800 one ( if it were possible to disguise) and conducted a comparison to the same model fuse undisguised, would people ( thinking the disguised fuse was real) still pick the disguised $2800 fuse. 

NO you should pay at least 5k .

That was the pre 2022 inflation price. 

Paying thousands of dollars for a fuse is pure insanity, regardless of whether they make a sonic difference or not.  However, if they contain quantum tunneled dark matter and antimuon alloy, then it's totally worth it.

I’d be curious if one disguised a regular old 10 cent fuse as a $2800 one

I recently disguised all my fuses and put directional arrows on them and the sound of my system has now been totally transformed!

@gakerty 

Paying thousands of dollars for a fuse is pure insanity, regardless of whether they make a sonic difference or not.  However, if they contain quantum tunneled dark matter and antimuon alloy, then it's totally worth it.

How is it any different than spending $50-100K on a DAC or AMP?  It is all relative to a degree.  If I can improve the sound of my system due to the tiny little fuse that costs $2k, then maybe it is a good investment vs shelling out 5-10 times that for a new Amp.  

 

There's a pair of Maggies advertised as having the Orange fuse. I'm tempted to offer more if he takes the fuse out.

I want to thank all the naysayers who haven’t tried the fuses for all of their profound statements. It is hard for me to understand why so many are downright angry about these fuses. If you do not want to  pay the money for them, that is your prerogative and I am completely content with your decision. But don’t tell others who have tried them and have done a/b tests with stock and other audiophile fuses that they do not make an audible difference or that you can trick them by placing an arrow on the fuse. 

But let’s say for craps and giggles, these fuses do not scientifically make an audible difference. But for those of us who bought them, our brain tells us we can hear a difference. If our brains tell us we hear improved sound quality and believe the fuses make an audible difference, doesn’t it mean they do? If my brain tells me I hear improved sound quality due to the fuse and I believe the improvement is worth the money I paid, then I’m completely satisfied and don’t really care what anyone else thinks. Even though that’s not the case because the fuses do make a huge difference. Every tweak out there has those who think the tweak is amazing and has made their system so much better, and others may say, meh. There are many audiophiles who believe cables don’t make a difference but most of us believe they do. I don’t really care if they don’t think they make a difference but they are missing out on some amazing improvements. 

 

@stevebohnii 

"I want to thank all the naysayers who haven’t tried the fuses"

Specifically, which are "the fuses" you are speaking about?  I have tried multiple fuses by Furutech, HiFi-Tuning, Synergistic Research, Acme Audio, and more.  Those long-term listening experiences in my own system have shaped my impression of aftermarket fuses, which I have specifically shared in previous posts.  No, I haven't tried the $2,844 fuse posted about in this thread.  It appears Clement Perry got half-way there with his review of the $1,422 Red fuse, but I don't remember reading from any posters here who have tried the $2,844 fuse.  I am sure the buyers believe it is amazing.

I won’t even pay a $895 record clamp? And fuse for almost 3k?in this during inflation? Vivafuse,com has it?