Should we upgrade high end fuses?

Rx8man - nothing illegal there, just the fact that IF your house burns down, your insurance company MIGHT refuse to pay the claim IF it finds out the bypassed fuse was to blame. But even then, you obvously have to have some kind of short-circuit failure to be any problem at all. No, I am not critisizing you at all. (but I would at least unplug the thing before going on a long vacation) ;)

I do believe Dopogue and others when they say there is an audible difference. But from what I know about electronics, it shouldnt make a difference. 120 Volts AC comes thru the fuse/power switch/power transformer primary circuit, and through a magnetic field only (no other direct electrical connection) to the transformer secondary, which has fewer(more) turns of wire (usually fewer for solid state-sometimes more for tube gear).
The secondary is connected to diodes which convert it to varying DC. This is then filtered with capacitors to smooth out ripples and then there is a voltage regulator to make sure that the DC voltage stays the same. This DC voltage is then used to power all the transistors/tubes/IC's etc.

My point is, after all this processing the voltage is transformed from 120V ac (which is really 340 Volts when measured on an oscilloscope) down to, say, 12 Volts DC. There is plenty of power (usually about 1875 Watts) available from the plug end, but maybe the component only uses 35 watts. So theres plenty of 'push' if needed.

Fuse materials: Silver is the best conductor of all metals, Gold is less so, but unlike silver won't corrode (unless you put cyanide on it ;) ) Cheap fuses use (I think) Chrome-plated steel. Poorer conductors will cause more resistance, hence more voltage lost in the fuses internal resistance. BUT the difference in resistance between a gold-ended fuse and a chrome one is infintesimal. So you would get 120 Volts on the component side with a gold fuse, you may get 119.999 Volts with a chrome plated one.

So logically speaking, you would say it makes no difference. But if you have heard the difference with your own ears, then I cannot argue with that (and I am not). I am just pointing out that it don't SEEM like it would matter even though it does.

Also the above tech info can be applied to Power Cords as well. The energy loss in a cheap 20 cent Chinese power cord should be not much different than an expensive audiophile cord. But I know that there are just too many 'Goners here that swear that there IS a difference.

I believe them. It just don't "compute".

Good point, Uru.