Carlos, just a small point. I said £18 ( including VAT @ 20%) per fuse. That’s about $25 USD.
As you correctly say "
Which is why I make the point about SoR ( Sale or Return). Unless cheap enough to just take a risk, items that are unpredictable in performance and cannot be returned should be avoided IMO. This, of course, depends upon one’s disposable income. For me and fuses…
In the era of £595 SR Master fuses, I thought I’d revive this thread. My feeling is that:
a) At that price, they have a lot to live up to; and
b) I completely agree with Greg, it’s about the music not the fuses.
While I might try one (on the holy grail to perfection), I’m not going to a huge amount of time sweating it. If it sounds better, it stays; if worse, it goes. While an imperfect assessment, I’d rather spend my time enjoying the music, rather than comparing fuses 
[PS: I’ll admit that I feel an SR Orange made a noticeable difference to my previous DAC, but less so with other equipment. So I think they can make a difference, but I also think it’s equipment dependant]
As it is a general question about the replacement fuses, may I ask the question this way: dCS sells hifi gear for thousands of Euros/Dollars, at least 25.000 but most of the time more than the double…They try to reach audio perfection. So, they would miss an opportunity to massively improve the performance of their products by saving a few dollar using simple/poor quality fuses instead of fantastic fuses just for few more dollars…Are they stupid ?
I’ve now replaced all original fuses with Synergistic Research Purple fuses and IMO the improvement in the overall SQ of my system is significant. Greater layering, air and extension for sure. It requires at least 200 hours of burn-in.
I had a nice improvement with SR Black fuses (this was a while ago) on my Magnepan 1.7s. I have not changed the fuses in my Rossini but I am tempted.
Before continuing, I think I should emphasise that I don’t think anyone thinks dCS uses poor quality fuses. That said, I think there are several possible answers to this question (and more than one may be true):
a) Tweaking how something sounds might create a sonic signature that appeals more to one person than another
b) It isn’t necessarily a few dollars, the SR’s are now reaching the ~$600 mark and there is another manufacturer that is charging multiples of that. I can’t speak to how well these two work (if at all) as I don’t have one of either, but it certainly isn’t small change
c) Where would they draw the line in cost and which taste should they cater for?
d) They may feel the advantage gained is too small
e) They may not feel auditioning fuses is the best use of their combined intellectual capabilities (compared, for example, to developing the Apex upgrade)
Following on from my previous reply, I’ve since read a post from the CEO of PS Audio that they hear a difference in fuses, to the point they now specify which manufacturers can be used in their own BoM.
They don’t go for seriously expensive fuses, they leave that to owners of their equipment, but won’t use any old fuse in their equipment either.
Can you share the post?
Thank you for the link.
It’s too bad Paul didn’t specify which fuse manufacturers they recommend.
Paul McGowan will say just about anything to sell his mif-fi equipment.
Every once in a while it may be useful to remind ourselves that fuses are there to protect our investment. They fail before something expensive is destroyed.
So, if the new, better sounding fuse is slower (and I am not saying it is, it’s just a hypothesis), the expensive part will be destroyed before the not-so-expensive fuse.
For this reason, I prefer not to mess with fuses.
There is a further consideration should you have an associated issue that results in an insurance claim. Once the claims adjuster finds that a non-standard fuse has been used then you may well find that you have no cover. Just saying .
You’ll note dCS also includes just a standard power cable despite the fact, at least in my system, aftermarket power cords made a noticeable audible improvement.
I’ve been playing with a Quantum Science Red…
Whether through other factors or reality, it was a bumpy ride for the first 150+ hours or so, but I feel happy with the outcome.
The difficulty is that the extended time it takes to get to 300+ hours makes it hard to say emphatically what I’m hearing is real, but it seems to me to be significant step forward in terms of spaciousness while delivering an effortless feel of how instruments sound in real life.
Right down to how the reverb sounds within an instrument, giving instruments a real sense of solidity. Maybe I’m going mad, but maybe they’re on to something…
I did an experiment with my inexpensive HT receive wherein instead of changing the fuse inside the unit, I built a custom power cord with (SR)fuse installed in the cord and the results were positive. This way you will not need to touch your dCS box.
I read somewhere that there some power cord companies that use fuses within their cords. Who knows that might be the trick :).
The reason is limited to the UK. It has nothing to do with audio matters per se but is necessary for safety reasons as we have a different home mains electricity distribution system known as a " ring main" and our regulations make no assumption that any connected device has an internal fuse. BTW, the fuse is not in the cable itself but in its (UK) plug which connects to the mains outlet.
This simply does not make sense. Of course if you prefer the sound this it is up up to you but it would be hard to conclude from this that it is in any way better.If fuses sound different (for whatever reason - I assume there is one) then the fuse inside the component will remain sounding different irrespective of another fuse preceding it. For this reason many audiophiles here have trick fuses in both the cable plug and device. Many also have custom installed mains circuits dedicated to audio components to avoid the ring main ( though regulations mean that the mains plug still has to include a fuse).
I’ll add to this to say that the UK system is based on the principle that a fuse protects the next part of the circuit.
The circuit breaker in the consumer unit/fuse box protects the in-wall cables around the house from overheating. The fuse in the plug protects the cable supplying the device in question from overheating, and the fuse in the unit is designed to protect the unit from drawing more power than it was designed to use.
There is provision for UK mains plugs not to include a fuse - for example lighting circuits with sockets which use the older round pin plugs which are protected by a low-rated fuse at the consumer unit as well as the use of EU sockets which adhere to UK regs when protected at the consumer unit with a 16A breaker (this is buried in the regs and might now be removed, having left the EU).