Lol you know me two well!
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I tend to agree on the price and SR is known to boost lagging sales of fuses with a BOGO1/2 offf sale.
The new MK2 firmware will likely be an improvement with powering off unused inputs.
I passed on latest Antero 198 since i had no pop issues to resolve and though I like Neil Diamond I didn’t care for a possible cCackling Rosie playback between every song.
Enjoy Japan!
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The AudioQuest 1200 has a 15A circuit breaker. So just a few more contact points next to the mains input. It seems a sensible approach. Unfortunately the 4 lower current plugs don’t seem to be isolated from each other. The main AQ guy can to my dealer in London and a few months later they dropped the product line in favour of Shunyata!
Lucky, because some of the SR fuses are also Bussman, including their 13A fuse. But AQ just wanted to limit the unit to 15A under any circumstances.
SR?
Oh no, it isn’t.
Antero is better, and the upcoming fixes many if not all of the crackling and popping issues… or so I’ve been tolllld. Yeah, that’s it. 
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Yes not all predictions come to fruition when variability of systems come into play with the mass release. My system i had huge sound changes from initial Beta that sent me to adding RF absorber to address harshness. Maybe i can remove that. Come to think of it maybe it is removable with a M-1 fuse ii changed out from a Early AM Ultimate SHD version. I can wait a week and tweak once I hope.
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@max_smith indicated above that there is “No fuse in my Niagara conditioner”
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I knew what max+smith indicated and audiophilehi what I wrote was intended as a suggestion…
which still stands…
Best wishes
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I made a mistake to order the Master from VH Audio. I thought I should give them some business besides ordering everything from CC. VH Audio does not have them in stock or something because they still haven’t ship my order of the Master for my MK2 yet. I would’ve gotten it already if I ordered from CC instead, oh well.
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I hate when you try and do a better thing than what you normally do and it bites you in the arse.
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No big deal, I’ll just wait a little longer for it that’s all. VH Audio sells a lot of nice items, I like to continue to help keep him around if I can.
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It’s worth noting that in the original DirectStream dac, there’s only 1 active fuse - the other is a spare
So, as I wrote earlier no chance to use Master in my Niagara 5000. So I decided to compare QSA Violet vs Master in my BHK pre. I burned in Master for 3 days without any listening sessions and need to say that Master blew away QSA from the first minutes.
Much more expanded soundstage, better microdynamics, and much better bass. HF sounded more detailed and not fatigued. I’m happy that Master delivers a sweet midrange without lean sound (SR Purple does this in some components). So I need to say that Master seems to be the well-balanced fuse. No chance to QSA Violet in my setup.
The other Master I will test in the linear power supply which power my router and switch for streaming.
Also, my friend did some tests with Master in his DAC (Chord) and then in a streamer (Sonore). After a few days of tests, he is still thinking about the results.
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Hmm. It’d be interesting to hear more about this. 
My second Master arrived today, It replaces the M1 that is in my MK2. Wow!! This second Master showed off it’s stuff right off the bat! The background is even more quiet with even more micro detail and dynamic contrast. On Nina Simone, the wavering of her rich voice is even more clear and real, and the trailing off into silence is brought into more stark relieve. The piano has more energetic transient attack and has richer resonance than before. Even the bass is more live, tightness and power than before, and with clearer attacks. Play Octave Record’s “the Art of Hifi” track 7 if you want to feel the power of this skin massaging bass. You need speakers with good bass extension though. And this is a brand new Master out of the box. I’m sure it will get even better as it breaks in. It sure does puts a nice accent to a already incredible sounding MK2 DAC.
The AM M1 is a nicely balanced fuse, but it can be a little too relaxed at time. The Master is also very balanced, but it brings out so much more from the music. The blackness, lack of noise, and super low distortion from this Master is truly remarkable! It curbs the little bit of dryness and sometimes lack of assertiveness I hear from the M1. It works really well with the MK2 DAC, just as it did with the P20. Now to enjoy the breaking in process. Highly recommended!
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Hmm…I watched all of the videos. Nothing there about fuses? Certain fuses - some not all? Did the distributor say why at all? I assume the question was asked? Is modifying an existing fuse a bad thing, per se? I’d never spend $8000 on a fuse, but I suppose that’s beside the point.
I use/have used Telos, SR and QSA fuses. They all change the sound. QSA the most refined and resolving, Telos the most dynamic and SR the most seductively smooth. When I read your post I immediately listened with a QSA Violet, then stock, then QSA Yellow, then SR Purple, then stock, then QSA Violet all in an Innuos Zen MK3. Each aftermarket fuse was preferred to the stock.
So…how do we take your information about repurposed Bussman fuses? If they get the job done, do we care? Value propositions are personal, not universal. And do we know that SR and Telos don’t do the same?
I’m interested that we don’t damn a product and company with extremely limited information.
The other thought I had was are we all able to purchase the parts required to make a fuse? Or do companies like Bussman produce everything in house? If they make it all in house it would make sense for all of the audiophile fuse people to buy straight from Bussman and modify. A lot cheaper than setting up your own plant, right? Even if you bought them and took them apart for modification and reassembly.
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My enquiries related to 13A fuses. In the UK they must be certified to be legal. Certification costs a lot of money. So QSA and SR relabel Bussmann. Otherwise the UK distributor would be breaking the law selling them. He told me they are not physically modified, but QSA say they have reduced resistance, which would require recertification. So they sell a $0.30 fuse that by law cannot be modified for $10,000. Just a massive scam as far as I am concerned.
The Zen Mk3 uses an uncertified 2A fuse. I tried a SR fuse in mine, as my once only fuse experiment. Innuos told me to use a 3.15A if I use SR, but that it should not make any difference. I can’t hear any difference.
There is no scientific reason why a stock fuse should under normal conditions have any impact at all. Its resistance is totally inconsequential. They are never on the signal path.
QSA seems to be a complete lie. No evidence he’s done any work for other companies. He’s a long time audio dealer called Lieder International. In 2015 he became distributor for Akiko, who do weird aftermarket fuse products, makes me wonder where he got the idea from for after-market fuses.
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It’s an interesting take, to be sure. I believe you that you experienced no difference in your Innuos. Please believe me that I do. I suspect it does t have much to do with the rest of our systems either. There seems to be a great deal of variation in what individuals perceive, not only in terms of taste (one man’s neutral is another man’s bright/dark) but also in what we’re actually able to perceive. Like the other senses, I think we have varying degrees of acuity. Most of my friends taste subtleties in wine, for example, that I just don’t perceive. And they have tried “teaching” me every way they know how. My take is that everyone needs to “suck it and see”, and then make judgements on value thereafter. I do wonder what a $10k fuse would do for a $100k amplifier, and if it would he “value”.
We can say aftermarket fuses are expensive if we compare them to 5 cent generics, or we can say they’re cheap compared to the extra performance a $200 fuse can bring to a $4000 streamer.
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For the record, Akiko publish results from independent third party testers. It’s available on their website. There’s also a review from Japan (I think) that carried out its own tests and showed Akiko products were doing what they were advertised to do. (Disclaimer - I’m an Akiko user, too)
I think it’s just a case of relabelling the Bussmann fuses and cryogenically treating them which destresses the fuse.
A while back my friend Bob was waxing lyrical about Audiophile fuses that he had bought from Russ Andrews. When Bob and his wife travelled overseas to visit their daughter, her husband and the grandkids - I was tasked with looking after his tropical fish, etc. Long-story short: I swapped out all of the fancy fuses on equipment that had fuses protecting either channel hence I replaced all the exotic fuses on the right channel with bog-standard fuses from RS Components, I left the exotic fuses in situ’ on the left channel.
When Bob returned home over a month later he had no idea that I had swapped out the exotic fuses, said fuses on the right channel; Bob was oblivious - completely in the dark, but he was still very happy with the sound of his system. It was some 6 months later on in the year at Christmas when I handed him back his fuses.
Now, I didn’t expect Bob to say you’ve changed the fuses - but surely if the superior, exalted fuses were as substantial an improvement as Bob proclaimed then to be, why didn’t he notice an imbalance to the sound and/or notice that something wasn’t quite right…! After a few profanities from Bob - we both had a great laugh, but I still rib him about it !!
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