Newsgroups: rec.audio.tech
Subject: Re: How safe operating an amp with no fuse?
References: <[email protected]>  <[email protected]>  <[email protected]>
[email protected] writes:

> Tomi Holger Engdahl
> 25 jan 07:35   afficher les options
> 
> [email protected] writes:
> > Did some experiments on the fuse of my amp... I replaced a 500mA 250v
> > fuse with a 1.6a 125v fuse and found the sound much improved. Then I
> > decided to replace the 1.6a fuse with a jumper made of a silver
> > paperclip, and found the sound improved much further. Then I replaced
> > the paper clip with silver solder, and found it improved further
> > (though I'm less sure about the solder being better than the clip
> > overall...).
> 
> 
> > I doubt that you could hear the difference of changing the fuse,
> > especially if you are changing the main amplifier use.
> 
> Yeah right. You and all the other queenies on this group, who've gone
> to great lengths to attack me for this, because it defies your stupid
> old religious beliefs. There are enough of you shouting "You are not
> hearing differences, you are hearing placebos...", that you sound like
> a chorus of drooling imbeciles to me. But I didn't ask for your opinion
> or anyone else's on the question of whether the fuse tweak is audible
> or not, did I? 

You might not have asked the question of whether the fuse tweak is audible 
or not, but when posting this kind of things questions to the newsgroups, 
you should be prepared to also be ready to take the commends that 
doubt the general idea of your modification. 

I have gone to the lengths of describing the the dangers of running 
the equipment without any fuse. And given few words on why the general 
idea of running the equipment without fuse is bad, and does not have 
any considerable effect on sound reproduction. If there is any 
effect on the exhanging the fuse, then other changing effects around 
(mains voltage varitions, equipment temperature, RFI) etc. have much 
more effect on sound reproduction than that fuse has!

My experices on the on this field are not just my beliefs. 
I have anysed the siautaion on my eariler posting based on 
well recognized electrical/electronics circuit theory. 
And I have also practical experience: I have designed and built 
my own audio equipment, I have repaired some of my own audio equipment etc.. 
I have operated the same audio equipment on my test bench with 
original fuze, with wrong size fuse and even with fuse temporarily 
short circuited with piece of wire when ruight fuse has been 
missing (typically in well controlled environment where 
the equipment is constantly monired..). There are some years 
on those experiments, but I don't remeber ever hearing any difference 
when changing the mains fuse to another or replacing with short circuit. 

> Unlike you and your cabal of religious audio zealots, I
> have a mind of my own and a pair of ears that go with it. 

I have also pair of ears. And I use them. 

> I can decide for myself. 

You are free to make your won decisions, and we are all 
free in this open forums to make our own desicisions 
and pos them here if we want. This is a free world and open 
public forum. 

> Since you HAVEN'T heard the effects of this yourself, do
> yourself a favor and shut your fucking trap about things you know
> nothing about, next time you offer your opinion on something to
> someone. 

I haven't heard the difference on my experiments I have made 
on my laboratory table. And I have not heard your system so 
hard to say. 

I am free to offer my opinion on this forum. 
As free as you are to express your own. 

And I think is know pretty much in the things I talk about here. 
I think this there pretty many things in my home country and users 
of this discussion group who agree on this with me. 

> If you did ever want to learn something new and not just
> repeat what you're told, it would have taken you less time to conduct
> the same experiment I did and find out for yourself, than it did to
> formulate your response here.

I have conducted prety many experiment on many audio things.. 
Experiemtnally tested many things before believing them. 

> > I think what you heard is caused memery by the psychological effect
> > that you though you were improving the device by changing the
> > fuse.
> 
> aka "placebo". Yeah, I get it, Einstein. You're a dumbass fuckwit who
> thinks the world begins and ends with the very limited amount of
> information you've learned about electronics. 

You have misjudged me. 

> You don't know just how
> ignorant you are and how little you know about audio. Im sure you know
> more about electronics, but Ive forgotten more about music reproduction
> than you now know. But since you think you're smarter than the top
> engineer at YBA,

Where have I said that that I claim to be smarter than the too engineer at YBA ?

> why don't you name the world class amp YOU designed,
> so I can have a listen and compare it? 

Name one you designed. 

> Just to make it easy on you,
> I'll compare it to YBAs shittiest amplifier. If you haven't designed
> anything better, then there's another reason for you to shut the fuck
> up about things you know nothing about.
> 
> > I quess that in real life systems if changing that fuse had
> > any noticeable effect on the audio amplifier, that amplifier
> > was not well designed, and turnign other loads on your house
> > on/off would have more effect on the amplifier performance
> > than changing the fuse.
> 
> Wrong guess. I already mentioned elsewhere that I did the same fuse
> substitution thing to my other amp, my cd player, etc., it all had the
> same effect of improving the sound. 

How did the sound really improve ? 
Can you describe how did that removing the fuse help. 

> Like I also said elsewhere in this
> thread, you wanna-be engineers always rationalize things you don't
> understand, because they don't follow what you think is true according
> to your religious beliefs in audio (and which often, isn't). STOP
> guessing and do the damn experiment for yourself, or shut up already.

I don't need to repeat the experiments.  

I have hear didfferences between different CD players, amplifiers, 
speakes, even between some cables... 
Changing the mains fuse to another has not made absolutely no 
difference on the sound heard on the systems. 

> "Guessing" is what people did when they tried to explain why the sky
> was leaking, you blithering idiot. "Science" is what led the more
> developed man to experiment, find out where the truth lies, and stop
> the fucking guessing. Why is why I will always be way ahead of the
> (audio) game than you and your RAT zealots here.

I have done experimenting on many audio things. 

And on those experiements I have also learned how easy it is 
to fool your hearing by the beliefs.. Ever been in "blind test" 
where you just try to hear the difference without previous 
knowlege on the things you test... 

> > It is dangerous to run equipment without fuse or wrong size fuse.
> > It can easily burn down your house. And if your insurance company
> > finds out that you intentianally replaces your fuses with
> > something else, they most definately will not pay any money to you.
> > So if this gambling you made on operating equipment without proper
> > fuses blows, you will need to start thinking what is to live
> > without your house and things inside it and no compensation for
> > them. And possibley killing/injuring/harming somebody else living on the
> > house or nearby, and getting sued because of the illegal electrical
> > modifications you made to your equipment that caused that fire!
> 
>  But I think the important thing here is, "Jesus will forgive me". Hey,
> if He can forgive a child pornographer like Arny Krueger, I'm sure he
> can forgive me for wanting to improve the sound of my audio system. I'm
> not worried about the insurance company paying out, since I don't have
> an insurance policy. I.m not worried about getting sued, since the
> lawyers would cost more than anything they could ever hope to get out
> of me. I'm not worried about killing my neighbors, since I hate my
> neighbors (they have a baby kid thats CONSTANTLY crying all the time -
> just shutting him up for good might be worth the damage to my
> property). And as for that property in question, well I'm currently
> developing a "volunatry simplicity" approach, and I'm not attached to
> material things any more. So maybe having my things destroyed is
> exactly what I need to free myself. Spiritually speaking. And as my
> dear old dad always said, "if you never gamble, you never win".

That's your view. 

On my viewpoint what you are doing with your equipment is plain stupid 
and potentially dangerous! Even if it had some noticeable effect on the 
system perfomance (which I very much doubt), I think the risk/reward 
ratio is not good on your approach. That's my optinion. 
 
> > Hard to say. But there are real changes.
> > As you know from other electrical equipment, they will not
> > last forever.. usually fail within 5-20 years more or less...
> Maybe todays cheap shit gear, but both these SS amps are over 25 years
> old, and they don't look to be close to failing.

Components do age! And you can't see that with your eyes. 

> 
> >  As I say, I've been running it a couple of hours so far
> > and there's been no change. As a matter of fact, a few weeks ago I had
> > previously removed the heatsink from the output transistors in order to
> > improve the sound, and there was never any overheating problem. 
> > You stupid!
> 
> Now that's very rude of you to call me names like that. Especially when
> YOU'RE the ignorant fuck who pretends to be an expert on issues that
> you clearly don't know what the hell you're talking about. As we shall
> see below...

Maybe I as a rude. Sorry on that. 
Usually you need to be a little bit rude to weak up people that are 
doign stupid dangerous things.

You said that:
"YOU'RE the ignorant fuck who pretends to be an expert on issues that 
 you clearly don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Based on the postings you have posted here I think pretty much 
same about you. 
And I am free to keep my opinion until there is a reason to change that. 

> > Heatsinks on the output transistors are there
> > for a very good reasons. The output transistors have considerable
> > power loss and get hot. If you remove the heatsinks, then the
> > transistors gets mugh hotter much sooner. When transistor gets
> > hot it's parameters change, causing first poor operation of
> > amplifier (worse sound easily), then starting to smell bad
> > (your figerprints on the cases start buring...), and then transistors
> > fail short... not always in this order.
> 
> I'm sorry that reality has a way of proving the theoretical world in
> which you live to be WRONG you ignoramus, but you can stop blabbing
> now, because nothing you've said here has turned out to be true. This
> is what I try to drum into the heads of you dumbass wanna-be techies:
> when you have NO real-world experience of what you're talking about,

I have real world experice. But you don't seem to believe that.

> and you just repeat by rote whatever the hell you've read in Popular
> Electronics, that does not make you an expert on ANYTHING. 

I don't repeat what I have read in Popular Electronics. 
I don't read that magazine.. 

> I can tell
> you without flinching that a month ago, I took out the heatsinks in
> both the aforementioned preamp and amplifier (the amp had a
> particularly massive heatsink, and an equally massive output transistor
> array). Why? Because I thought it'd improve the sound. And it most
> certainly DID. In BOTH components. 

What was your initial jurgement on thinking why removing them would 
improve sound ? 

> So that already shoots down your
> theoretical BS about "worse sound easily". 

I am talking on experience here.. I have expriemtned with 
transistor amplifier circuits... and run transistors without 
heatsik when they should have had one... and hard and seen effects 
that happen when you run them for some time... 
Burned few fingers and transistors back them.

> I also removed a wire that
> was screwed into the large output transistor array (soldered at the
> other end to the underside of the circuit board). I don't know what
> that was for (some sort of grounding I would presume), but I do know
> that removing it from the surface of the output transistor further
> improved the sound.
> 
> Next, about the heat: there WAS none. I carefully monitored the heat
> output in both the amp and preamp after I took the heatsink out. There
> was very little, if any, warmth coming through the grill in the casing
> above the heatsink. Thats pretty much normal for this amp, it never got
> hot. I played music through the amp all night to test it out, it was
> fine the next day. I even touched the output transistors with my bare
> fingers after leaving both components on for hours. Guess what, dumbo?
> They were no hotter than warm. No "bad smell" (well, no worse than with
> this stuff already smelled like!). 

Can you tell which specific amplifeir you have modified ? 

> So much for all your stupid bullshit
> about how they'll get "much hotter much sooner" and I will fry my amp.

Been there, seen that when transistors fail. 

> The only thing you wrote that was correct here, is that the parameters
> change when transistors get hotter (but NOT in the ways you predicted).
> I already knew that from experiences with my Class A amp. That's why I
> took out the heatsinks in the first place, genius.
> 
> Well, Tomi, I hope you've learned something here about what you don't
> know about audio. And if not, then you're even stupider than I give you
> credit for.

Nothing particularly new about audio that I would have not known 
earlier. Maybe I should have written my earlier posting in a little 
bit different format... less theory and more real world experiment 
results.

The end of your posting gave a better picture on you. 
It seems that you have been pretty careful on your experiments, 
and know more on things you do that seemed based on the first posting. 
Sorry. It is pretty easy to get wrong impressions on the people 
based on their postins. 
  
> > Your amplifier if you are lucky might work some time without
> > the heatsinks if you play at very low volume... if you use
> > higher volumes or play longer time, it is very propable that sooner
> > or later your output transistors fail! The hotter they run the
> > sooner they fail!
> 
> Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah... see above for why you are a presuptious
> fool, and don't know what you're talking about. Ive worked this amp for
> over a month without heatsink at loud volumes, day and night, never had
> a problem. Im so confident it has no detrimental effect on the amp, Ive
> already thrown out the heatsink. My concnlusion is that sometimes these
> things are added in order to prevent failures when used in a variety of
> ways, but just because theyre desinged in, does not mean they're always
> needed. 

That can happens on some equipment. There are amplifiers that designed 
in such way that there is overuse of all kind of things. Much larger 
hetsinks that are needed, overrated components etc.. just to be on 
safe side in all cases. 

And there are also amplifiers that are pretty much optimized 
to provide what is promised with close to minimal cost... 
Taking out parts in such design can cause pretty nasty 
consequences. 

> And ive PROVEN they can do more harm than good. Lets see one of
> you crackerheads actually prove ANYTHING that youve been saying.
> > So sooner or later I expect that your output transistors will
> > fail short... this will cause quite propably a chain-reaction
> > that would in normal case burn your amplifier fuse... 
> Wrong again, chumly. If they haven't burnt out after playing loud music
> for a months time, then they're simply not going to (not for reasons of
> overheating, since they dont get that hot!). 

Feel lucky that you have picked such conservatively designed amplifier 
that you can take out the heatsinks, and still no overhating on your use. 

> Surely you must tire of
> being wrong all the time... The only chain reaction I see is that when
> one of you posts some ignorant BS to me, it incites another to do the
> same.
> > When you have removed the fuse, then in this case I expect you
> > get the smome coming out sooner or later from your autput
> > transistors, amplifier power transformer and/or your speakers.
> > And possibly flames soon after that..
> 
> The only flames I see is from the RATs on this newsgroup because I
> dared say something in their presence that contradicts all of your
> inane religious beliefs....


-- 
Tomi Engdahl (http://www.iki.fi/then/)
Take a look at my electronics web links and documents at 
http://www.epanorama.net/