Aftermarket fuses in the BHK 300s

(Sorry, detoured through Urgent Care, so pardon my tardy reply)
I used the HiFi Tuning Supreme for the rail fuses. See VHAudio selection at https://www.vhaudio.com/fuses.html#hififuses There are some fast blow Gold, but at $40 each instead of the $60 I paid for the Supreme. To me it wan’t worth the $$$ for the rail fuses to get the Synergistic Black on the rails (the Blue had just come out a week after I bought them, so the Black were on sale) Sounds awesome.

Best of luck.

–SSW

Hi SSW
I replaced the T 5A and T 1.6A (230V) with SR Blue fuse and the result was staggering, I was planing to replace the rail fuses with SR Black or even the Blue. Are you saying that it will not be worth it for the rail fuse?
I have used HIFI Tuning Supreme in the past in my dcs dac it is not as good as the SR in my opoinion however if the rail fuse is not as critical will it ibe an ‘economical ‘alternative to the SR with worthwhile improvements to sound quality?
I will appreciate your input as SR Black fuse costs £90 GBP here in the UK and the Blue is £130 GBP​:flushed::frowning:
Jake

Jake, I used the Hifi tuning Supreme on the rails just for that reason. I replaced those first, and the result was immediate and impressive on the BHK 250. There was an improvement when I put in the SR Black in the 10A/2A (120V), but not as significant as the rail. I have not yet bought the Blue as they only came out a week or two after I bought the Black on sale (3 for the price of 2) so I suspect they were getting rid of Black inventory while the Blue was being shipped.

Best of luck. Try the HiFi Tuning on the rail, and give them a try. Who knows, maybe when SR comes out with the next color you can get those for the rail but in the meantime you should be happy with the intermediate.

Let me know if it improves things for you, I’ve been saying this for months and no one else has corroborated my findings. (I may be full of it, or just missing something . . .)

Best of luck.

–SSW

Hi SSW
Many thanks for your response.
If the rail fuses make a huge difference I may go the whole hog and stick 4xF10A SR blue.
I will be sure to report back once I have done so which may few weeks as it will cost £520GBP.
It is also a royal pain in the ar*e for me to do as I have no easy access to the back of the BHK 250, as you can see from the picture below I have to move my Wilson speaker out of the way so I would like to do all 4 at the same time.
What Tube/Valve are you running in your 250?
Cheers
Jake

520 quid?! Oh, man, I’m not going to guarantee results. Like I said, I have not had anyone else confirm my results yet. (maybe because getting 4 fuses is expensive at this level). And I did replace the fuses in the reverse order that you did: I changed rails first, then to the input power, and the difference was striking and immediate, with less perceived change for the mains fuses.

Good luck. Yes, the blue will work better than the OEM. How much better than the HiFi Supreme, I don’t know.

As far as valves, I got caught up in the Telefunken E88CC mess when my local dealer (Kevin at Upscale Audio here in the Los Angeles area) "found’ some Telefunken E88CC “NOS”. Now, Kevin swears by them. He tests every one, so we know they work and are quiet and perform very well.

But here’s the rub: 1) the boxes the tubes come in are too new to be NOS. They’re just too fresh and crisp, not what one would expect from a 50 year old tube box. 2) the lettering on the tube is the wrong color, slightly gold, and doesn’t rub off as easily as the factory Telefunken labels did. 3) Kevin’s supply of “newly discovered NOS” came after another batch had been out, folks were buying at $200 each or more, and found out they performed badly. 4) Some date codes on the tubes I bought match those on other suspected imitation tubes that were on the earlier batch that were skewered by the previous owners.

The tubes do have the “T-in-the-diamond” icon in the bottom of the tube in between the pins (But this could have been faked with a glued-on add-on pip with the proper molded logo) The pins are gold plated, as per the original.

But they test well, per Kevin. And they sound fine.

I suspect (but I can’t prove) the easiest answer is that these are real Telefunken E88CC, but used, and in this ‘new’ batch that Kevin found in Eastern Europe I think the fakers actually tested the tubes and picked out the good ones before they relabeled them, packaged them in new boxes, and then put 100 of them into the original 50 year-old packing box that was sold to Kevin.

Hi SSW
Many thanks for your extensive reply I appreciate it.
I think I will go for the SR Black fuse as I could get for £300 as special deal and I know that it is better than the HiFi tuning supreme.
Sorry to hear about your mishaps with the Telefunken tube.
I got the Telefunken PCC88 from Watford Valves here in the UK , the valves are selected for EAR YOSHINO pre amps they came in old boxes and after spending time cleaning the pins with deoxit and treating the pins with Craig’s pro gold I was astonished at the improvement in sound quality it was night and day.
Cost was £142 for a matched pair, see picture below.image
I’m going to get another pair to keep for the future.
I will report back once I have replaced the fuses.
All the best
Jake

Jake, sounds good, I’m sure the black are more cost effective than the Blue. Let me know if you can hear a difference. Best of luck!

Where are you at in the UK? I had temporary duty at Rutherford Lab outside of Oxford for a year back in 1983 when we were doing mission operations for the Infrared Astronomy Satellite. After that was done I came back and bought the Streets 950 and wound up here at PSAudio. So all my audiophile spending since then was primarily because of your Brit influence. :slight_smile:

I’m in Worthing West Sussex, not far for Brighton.
Few high end manufacturers within 5 mile radius of me: B&W loudspeakers, AUDIO NOTE UK, SME.
I prefer American equipment generally the BHK 250 wiped the floor with my EAR YOSHINO 890 Power amp which I thought was untouchable.
The Wilson sasha also wiped the floor with my Tannoy Kensington SE, the only thing I can’t better yet is my dcs stack.
What’s your front end?

Thank you for your answer. I think I will go fot hifi tuning supreme for the 4 10A fuse of the BHK 250

Let me know how it turns out for you. I got my BHK 250 about 2 weeks before the BHK 300 came out, and everyone was saying how much better the 300 was. Bummed that I’d been too late to the party (I’d been waiting 4 years for the BHK to come out to replace the Streets) I just sulked. But the rail fuses really opened up the 250 (to me).

But then again, I had the earliest version of the 250 (S/N #9) , and there’s been a few revisions since then, so when it was sent back to fix the binding posts the upgrades were done that may have overtaken the improvements I’d seen with the fuses. So you guys may not discern any improvement like I did.

So let me know if there is a real difference in yours when the fuses are swapped.

Best of luck!!

–SSW

SSW, does you BHK 250 make clicking sound 30 min after switching on ?
I think it was being referred to metal expansion, I read about this here but no conclusion was reached ?

I have just ordered the Synergistic Blue fuses for the BHK 300s. Will report back once I have them and install.

I have used these in my BHK 250 5A and 1.6A, amazing.
Be prepared for your jaw to hit the floor

Wanna hear a sad story? It’s terribly sad so go get tissues first.
I thought I’d try a Synergistic Blue in my BHK pre. It sounded better for certain.
Then I had to move this thing over there and so on and whilst thinking that the switches were off—and you can guess it, not, I plugged the power cable into the pre and poof----blew the $149. fuse. And now the stock fuse is back in it’s little home and I think it sounds great. Told you it was sad.

That is terrible, the thing is once you try the Blue yo can’t go back.
That’s why I will only go for the Black for the rail fuses as they seem to blow more often.
Here in the UK they cost £130 GBP.
What about directionality, have you reached a conclusion?

I feel sorry for you, I would be dummed if it happened to me…
These sr blue are really expensive!

My only opinion about directionality is that it was far less satisfying on it’s way out.

Jake, no, there’s a relay click when it comes online after warmup but no other clicking noise whatsoever. Mine is a 120V unit, though, so I don’t know if the 230V version has anything different in the power supply.

You don’t shut the cabinet door while it’s on, do you? That would be very bad for heat buildup, so it may be a thermal relay kicking on if you do. Might have to ask Paul what the click is.

Best of luck.

–SSW

No the door stays open and there is a fan that switches on if it is to hot, and never did so far unlike my previous amp which run a lot hotter.
The 250 doesn’t feel hot compare to my EAR YOSHINO.
The clicking noise doesn’t sound like a relay more like a mechanical noise due to expansion maybe the valve input stage expanding as it warms up after being in standby.
The picture shows the fans I used with my EAR as recommended by Tim de Paravicini.

If you bought it on a credit card see if you have purchase protection. Chase Sapphire has 120 days if you accidentally broke it up to 500 dollars