Kids: Don’t Try This At Home

So I’m awaiting a replacement SR fuse for my preamp, and started thinking (always trouble). I ordered what known as a neutral “dummy” fuse. It’s a solid brass plug replacement for a fuse. I did a search; had no idea these things existed!

As I figured, the plug is the equivalent of bypassing the fuse; that is, it adds no impedance (the stock fuse adds 0.3 ohms).

The sound is sooo different. My preamp generally sounds fantastic (even with the stock wire fuses), but there was always something off. I could never clearly hear violin-body resonance, for example. The new SR fuses brought forth more body, but the dummy does this without the bass over-emphasis. The overall sound is just smooth and effortless. I don’t know if the slugs require break in…

I know I can’t keep the dummies in the preamp long term (not safe), but at least I have a reference Sound to compare whatever fuses I end up using long term.

Just thought I’d share…

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Thinking again.

To Paul and company: When you listen to release candidates, do you listen with fuses in the circuit?

It actually bothers me that fuses can make such a profound difference in the character of a device’s sound

Hi, @jhnh. Where did you buy this plug? I haven’t ever heard about it. But there’s no doubt there’s an inherent risk on use it.

The plugs are an electrical product; so, any electrical supply house should have them. I purchased mine from Allied. The plugs are made by Bussman (the fuse company).

Well, I’ve been telling this for quite some time. Fuseless connection can sound really good. I turned my fuse bypasses on the lathe from different materials and solid or tube aluminum ones seem to sound best to my ears. More organic and full bodied sound. Unfortunately fuse is a fuse, it can be made of exotic materials, but the principle remains the same - they introduce impedance, and perhaps other effects depending on how they are made. Impedance is what makes fuse to burn the filament.

Did you try to replace the original fuse with a “hifi” one twice (or even more) its specification (eg. 5A by 10 or 15A). I think that the extra conductivity would bring similar results or even better. However both would put the equipment in risk.

Interestingly enough, I went a step further and replaced the 5 year old SR fuses in my mono blocks with slugs as well; so my “power chain” (preamp/amps) is fuseless — I long ago bypassed the fuses in my Maggies.

I realize now that the artifacts I was working so hard to get rid of were fuse related, since there was still a bit of it left when I bypassed the preamp fuses. Bypassing the power amp fuses normalized and integrated my sound — no more strangeness! Now adding multi wave on the P3 (powers the DSS) is satisfying rather than annoying :slightly_smiling_face:

I think, however, that these components will be as far as I go with the fuse bypass stuff. I have a beeswax fuse in my P3 (power for digital) and a PSA stock fuse in my P15 (analog power)

Sorry @jhnh, but what exactly a “slug” means? Is it a thick piece of copper / wire?

https://www.alliedelec.com/product/bussmann-by-eaton/nnc/71461321/

So even slugs need break in.

A couple of weeks and the midrange has just opened up to the point where I don’t recognize my system’s sound — in a good way. Sometimes I used to play the system loud so I could hear stuff that I now hear easily at any volume.

Instrument body, musical intimacy, and no emphasis of any frequency or frequencies. It’s really hard to describe, but the sound is as natural as live, unamplified music.

My next trick will be to maintain this sound safely with real fuses…

Please let us know when you’ve created a fuse that works like a slug of copper.

Please be very careful.

This would be a wonderful accomplishment. And would put the other fuse manufacturers out of business.

(No sarcasm)

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