Home Tweakers' Asylum

Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ.

Fuse orientation change - a real eye-opener

I've got a Jolida JD1501S amp that every so often blows its fuse. It happens when powering up from standby doesn't happen on the first press and someone presses a second time in too quick succession. It's been like this for years but a technician who looked into it couldn't find what was wrong... any suggestions on the matter?

For this reason I only use cheap-ass fuses. I few months back I blew the fuse and went and got a replacement and spare. I'd read about fuse orientation here and so spent a little time switching back and forth between the two orientations. It did seem like one way sounded better than the other so I stuck with it. At the time I wasn't convinced that I wasn't imagining things, as is so often the case when I switch back and forth between things - I sort of end up trusting my gut.

So a few weeks back my girlfriend, who had just moved in and hadn't quite got acquainted with 'the rules', caused the fuse to blow. She panicked but this time I didn't yell at her - I knew how to fix it. I swapped in the spare in the same orientation as before, as judged by the writing on the ends. The sound seemed more 'brittle' than it was before the fuse blew, but I just put that down to it not being broken in. However, after a couple of weeks, when break-in must have been less of an issue, I found the sound was not as enjoyable as from the weeks before the fuse blew. In fact, it was almost unlistenable in comparison. I thought that such a major difference couldn't be caused by a fuse but some other change that I'd made along the way.

In the end I did swap it round, a couple times, and settled on one orientation that, again, 'seemed' to sound better, irrespective of what was written on the ends of the fuse (I'm pretty sure it's the other way round to what the previous fuse was). Well, lo and behold, within a couple days it became obvious that the old sound was back; almost with a vengeance. A brittle and almost irritating sound, which I was about to go on another wave of tweaking to try to improve, was replaced with a much fuller, more musical and bass-laden presentation that leaves me with *no* desire to make changes.

The change was a fundamental one and another example of how, in this bizarre hobby, the smallest, most seemingly insignificant difference can be make-or-break for the musicality of a sound system. I wonder if this mirrors anyone else's experience?


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Kimber Kable  


Topic - Fuse orientation change - a real eye-opener - Japesgalore 12:03:32 04/15/10 (67)

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.