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Anyone Adding Fuses Inline to Speakers?

as a funny aside, back when I was young and immature (around 1970) I purchased my AR3a speakers. I read about fuses and bought some to install on the back of the speaker. Then I'd put on the Living Stereo 1812 Overture with the real canons and see if the fuses would blow. They did. Replaced the fuses, then brought my friends in to show them how the fuses protected the speaker. Of course fuses blew again. After a while I realized the ONLY time the fuses blew was when I was showing some one how the fuses blew!! Eventually I stopped this and haven't used fuses since about 1971 (and don't forget there weren't many megawatt amps like today so it's a different ballgame today)
 
damacman said:
In 25 years I've never used speaker fuses - until I bought a pair of XRT22s which have 4A fuses in each speaker. I run bridged MC2600s to them. Hmmm ...

About a month ago, I was installing a new phono cartridge. With the volume on my preamp set to 77, I did the stupidest thing ever - removed the headshell. Now I thought I had pressed mute on the preamp ... nope.

The resultant noise through the system shook the entire house! Oddly enough, the right channel took the brunt of it. This took out the 4A fuse in the right channel speaker in the process. With trepidation, I replaced the fuse and all was A-OK.

With 1700 wpc on tap, I got really lucky that was all that blew. Fuses for me from here forward.

Agreed that was a really incredibly stupendously dumb move on my part but that $1 fuse saved my ass.
Click to expand...

Well, maybe...

Speakers can take quite impressive short term power without suffering any damage.

There bigger point here is turn your stuff off before messing with it.
 
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whoaru99 said:
Well, maybe...

Speakers can take quite impressive short term power without suffering any damage.

There bigger point here is turn your stuff off before messing with it.
Click to expand...

That's good advice not just for speakers. A lot of vintage amps like my Heatkit's will blow whole banks of output devices if you mess with the wiring while powered up.
 
... an attack of the Dumshitz Syndrome ... those dOH! moments happen to the best of us when we least expect it ... <G>
 
All of the best lessons I've ever learned were when I was suffering from Dumbshitz Syndrome. :thumbsup:
 
I used an inline fuse to protect just the tweeters on a pair of bi-ampable Boston Acoustic ba400's. I had blown a couple of tweets by overdriving a 250wpc amp into them. I added a 2.5amp inline fuse and that used to blow occasionally to but I never lost any more tweeters.
 
Another option is a PPTC (Polymeric Positive Technology Coefficient) devices. Resistance climbs as the device heats.

One brand is polyswitches:
www.te.com/usa-en/products/circuit-protection/overcurrent-devices/polyswitch-resettable-devices.html

As I recall the off resistance was an ohm or less, and it doesn't affect the sound as far as I was able to determine from reading about them.

I bought some from Parts Express for a pair of bookshelf speakers I'm rebuilding for someone, but haven't yet installed them, so I haven't yet done an A/B comparison.
 
Many tweeter protection circuits rely on a simple incandescent bulb. Resistance increases with heat of the filament. Byproduct is that the bulbs flash to the music at high volumes ...
 
I was talking to Jim Hunter (retired engineer @ Klipsch back in PWK days). He said they shipped their MWM (pro bass bins) with (don't recall) "X" amp fuses.

Since I don't recall these details 19 years later....long story short he said the speakers would arrive at a venue. The folks putting the system together would put (for example) a LARGER 10 amp fuse in them.... and they were blowing woofers like popcorn.

He said he referred them back to the instructions to have a "X" amp fuse in them "however, if you prefer use your expensive K43 woofers to protect your $2.00 fuses, that is certainly your choice"
 
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