Does the quality of a Fuse effect the sound ?

[DSJR]

I don't think I would disagree DL, but I tend to have the opinion currently in a possibly similar vein to your amp designer. Get a great and stable sound from amply specified but standard bits and then tweak from there. I used ferrites a lot as they were cheap and easy to remove. As I've said before, our location seems to have decent and consistent mains and many of the things I heard before no longer apply here.

[Spectral Morn]

I don't think I would disagree DL, but I tend to have the opinion currently in a possibly similar vein to your amp designer. Get a great and stable sound from amply specified but standard bits and then tweak from there. I used ferrites a lot as they were cheap and easy to remove. As I've said before, our location seems to have decent and consistent mains and many of the things I heard before no longer apply here.

Hi Dave

Sorry I thought you were skeptical about cables...my error. Ferrites are an excellent tweek on most kit but particularly digital, phono stages and anything with a class d output or switch mode power supply.

I like Roger Modjesky approach to design...if you haven't read his web site you might enjoy it..just type Ram labs or Music Reference.

Regards D S D L

[Barry]

I don't know either! Waaaaaaaaaaay too technical / esoteric for me, Barry. Privileged info. for the few(s), i.m.o. (sorry 'bout dat!)

I don't really want to be drawn into this argument/discussion as I am, in general, sceptical about the improvements brought about by using 'exotic' mains cables. However it would seem to be a harmless pursuit, as long as the basic safety aspects are taken into consideration.

I can well imagine that if you are plagued with a 'dirty' mains supply, then fitting ferrite sleeves around mains cables might be effective, as might be the use of screened/shielded 3-core cable (don't rely on the screen/shield to provide the earth continuity conductor).

As to whether amplifiers, valve or solid state, single ended or push-pull are more or less dependant on, or are suceptible to, mains supply quality and therefore on 'tweeks', probably depends on whether they operate in Class A or not. Class A amplifiers draw a constant current from the power supply, and so from the mains. I would have thought that under these conditions, modulation by the audio signal of the mains current drawn by the amplifier would be negligable.

Furthermore, surely a well designed power supply filters out any mains spikes etc. ? Mains transformers are designed to be efficient at frequencies around 50Hz. They ought to present a high impedance to the high frequency components of a 'spike'. This is usually achieved by the low capacitance and high leakage inductance between the primary and secondary windings. In this respect either bi-limboid transformers (where the two windings are on separate limbs of the magnetic circuit formed by the laminations), or transformers in which the two windings are completely separate but adjacent to one another on a common limb, are better than toroidal transformers. In the latter the two windings are wound one on top of the other, and so have a relatively high inter-winding capacitance and low leakage inductance.

These are only my thoughts - I am not a circuit expert; my field of 'expertise' concerned frequencies some million of times higher than those of audio and did not use conventional circuitry at all.

Again apologies for information/opinion overload.

Regards

Barry

[NRG]

The power supply is in the signal path and has a large affect on the sound, take a look at the block diagram for an SE amp and you'll see how. PSU quality affects both PP and SE, SE more so...class A may draw constant idle current but faced with a varying reactive 'speaker load and signal the AC current demand is anything but continuous. If SS rectification is used the current spikes placed on the mains supply can be very large and the supply impedance becomes a factor.

The average mains TX don't form a LP filter unfortunately, HF hash and spikes will pass through them due to the capacitive coupling of the windings....and then there's DC offset that can appear on the mains saturating the TX core causing the TX to buzz, Toroidal are prone to this.

[anthonyTD]

The power supply is in the signal path and has a large affect on the sound, take a look at the block diagram for an SE amp and you'll see how. PSU quality affects both PP and SE, SE more so...class A may draw constant idle current but faced with a varying reactive 'speaker load and signal the AC current demand is anything but continuous. If SS rectification is used the current spikes placed on the mains supply can be very large and the supply impedance becomes a factor.

The average mains TX don't form a LP filter unfortunately, HF hash and spikes will pass through them due to the capacitive coupling of the windings....and then there's DC offset that can appear on the mains saturating the TX core causing the TX to buzz, Toroidal are prone to this.

agreed!!!
A...