Trevor Wilson wrote:

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"Yep." He said. "It was that bloody Sansui stereo. It caught
fire."

See, one of the issues that I identified with the Sansui, is that there
are combustible materials on each end (plastic end pieces) and a pressed
fibre board base-plate. That, combined with a power transformer, where
the thermal fuse connections are easily accessible from the outside of
the transformer, means that lazy techs simply short the thermal fuse
when it fails (which it did in 90% of that range of Sansui amps). I
suspect my old friend had picked up a repacked amp, that had failed. You
can work out the rest. Horrible quality products.



** The purpose of the thermal fuse inside the power tranny is to preserve the integrity of the Class 2 insulation. If that were bypassed and the tranny ever got hot enough to catch fire, there is a glass fuse that blows very quickly soon as turns begin to short out.

For the tranny to get seriously hot, the amp must be in use playing music loudly. This is not gonna be the case when no-one is home or all are asleep.

If the primary of the tranny failed due to voltage spikes on the AC supply, the
glass fuse would still prevent fire.

Maybe the Sansui amp was involved in the fire, rather than the cause of it.

I've see people sit candles on top of their stereos.



..... Phil