thezaks: Indeed, I have replaced the SR Tesla Plex SE wall outlet with the SR Blue. The improvement is significant and worthwhile. After installation, I heard an immediate increase in detail of the soundstage ( with no brightness) and a sense that the music flowed with less effort. After 24 hours the improvement was even greater. I felt the sonics then continued to improve over the next 10 days.
Synergistic Research is having their special until December 31 where you buy a Blue outlet and you get a free Blue fuse. Perfect to put in your amp, subwoofer, or source. The Blue fuse does make a difference. The combination of a Blue fuse and Blue outlet on sound improvement is quite remarkable.
The SR outlet comes with a 30 day trial so you can try it without worry. The audio improvements are not subtle.
Elizabeth: It must be as I just finished ordering an additional 5 Blue Outlets to take advantage of the special offer. They will be utilized in two stereo systems and one headphone system. I am happy for you that your Furutech outlets plus Pangea power cord upgrades are working well in your system. I utilized your positive reports about Pangea to upgrade my Sony 4K Television power cord from stock. It is a significant improvement over the stock cord.
You can get a free fuse for any SR Blue Outlets ordered in December. E-mail or call highend-electronics, Apple Valley California and simply tell them the fuse size: small or large, slow or fast blow, and amperage rating needed.
Alfred and Betty Kainz at highend_electronics are very good to work with. 760-490-2410
Installed 3 Synergistic Research Blue outlets today. What is interesting to me is how fast the sound improves when these Blue outlets are installed. Immediately there was a perceived increase in dynamics. Over the next hour, the soundstage widened and then became deeper.
Unlike many other audiophile grade outlets, the SR Blue outlets do not have a prolonged break-in process to go thru.
Tomorrow I will be installing Blue outlets in Mother's system. It will be fun to see how the single driver Terasonic speakers + Pass Lab amp responds.
Installed the Synergistic Research Blue fuses and Blue outlets first thing this morning at Mother's. I just got back from a Sunday night dinner and listening session. Her system is a Pass Lab First Watt F-7 amp, PS Audio Direct Stream DAC, and Terasonic high-efficiency single driver speakers with the silver voice coil upgrade. She streams her music via Windows 10 computer. Everything is left on 24/7
Her description: There is better layering of the instruments front to back. A sense of greater relaxation and tranquility. Better detail. The brush work by the drummer is now more complex.
I left the apartment with her continuing to listen to "her music".
My impression was the music has an enhanced sense of ease with better 3D soundstage placement and improved and enriched harmonics. The sound is very addictive.
@jea48 I have the same issue with the SR outlet and have wondered what they might be able to accomplish with a ’higher’ quality unit. Whatever they are using as treatment / conditioning does return value in overall performance upsides.
@jea48 That's a little disappointing to find out and very disconcerting at the price they charge! I am happy that I perceived a change in SQ but still that is depressing. May have to reevaluate the purchase of any future SR Blue products.
lak: I have used and still own 5 Furutech GTX-R outlets. I now prefer the Synergistic Research Blue outlet. They have the big spaceous sound and detail of the GTX-R but the detail is more relaxed, and there does not seem to be any one frequency that is emphasized. These are two excellent outlets, I simply prefer the Blue.
I have no uneasy feelings about the "build quality" of the Blue Outlets and the grip on the inserted plugs is just the right amount. The Blue plugs are easy to try in a system. They are well-stabilized after 12 hours of being in place and total break-in is done by 10 days. The GTX-R break-in is all over the place for 3 to 4 weeks.
I think auditioning a Blue Outlet is a fun experiment and easy to do.
Lak - Might be wise to wait and see if Jea48 comes up with a "blue" Seymour alternative . Looks like he found the black duplex might be rebadged Seymour .
In a direct comparison between the Furutech (F) GTX-D NCF(R) and GTX-D Gold and the Synergistic Research (SR) Black and Blue outlets:
SR Blue >> SR Black >> F NCF(R) >> F Gold
The SR Blue outlet breaks in sooner than the SR Black, but both resulted in much higher and enjoyable performance than fully (and I mean lengthy) broken in Furutech outlets.
I'm a fan of Furtech and use their NCF terminations with all of my power cables. Outlet performance is a different story, in my system.
well , in your previous links the two seemed identical, except in price . I am shocked no one else wants to comment on this . Maybe they did not bother looking at the two with magnification .
Could someone please explain why a fuse or receptacle needs to break in? I'm thinking it has more to do with the return policy of these over-priced gimmicks. Just wait more than 30 days and it will sound amazing! And... the window to return will have passed.
Also, the only job of the entire AC power feed is to supply voltage and current with minimal sag or reduction during transient demands of the highest power consumers in an audio system like amplifiers.
If I may suggest a far cheaper and much more effective method to improve sound quality. If you're reasonably handy and careful you can run a dedicated branch circuit from your power panel to feed your amplifier(s). This will result in much less droop in the voltage when amplifier demands are high. This will then result in better control of your speaker drivers. You may even notice that your house lights don't dim when you really crank up the volume. A nice side benefit.
I'll admit that I've fallen for the placebo effect a few times in my audio adventures. Caveat emptor and all that...
I completely agree. I wish I didn’t believe in break in and/or could not tell the difference. It sometimes goes through many changes - better, worse, then better again, etc. I wish it was placebo. It’s easy to blame it on placebo when one does not believe in break in or cannot tell the difference. Not much more to say - neither side will convince the other.
I sprung for a $19 Pangea outlet recently (my bedside Schiit Magni 3 headphone amp has what seems like a 14 lb power supply) as it was cheaper than the PS Audio ones I'd previously installed elsewhere...I'm mostly interested jn the grippy-ness of these things (and they're both simply a more substantial design than the crappy el cheapo standard ones), and the Pangea is certainly grippy...well done. The PS Audio outlets took 4 minutes to break-in (actually one was 4 minutes, the other one was closer to 18 seconds), and the Pangea sadly never broke-in at all, but does convey electricity from the wall cable to anything plugged into it which is all I ask of it...that and the grippy part.
What I would want to know, if I was in the market for changing out wall outlets in order to change the tonal balance of my audio system, is what is the science behind ANY of the claims made by SR? From what I can see on the SR website as regards these outlets, bald statements are made describing the "sound" that your system will have, with absolutely no rationale to support any of the claims, no scientifically plausible "mechanism". I am not categorically against tweaks. I do believe that power cords, interconnects, speaker cables and other more surprising elements of an audio system can affect sound, but if I am going to spend $200 on a wall outlet (or a similar amount on a fuse), I need to know more. (Of course, with the fuses, we are told there is some sort of quantum effect; that makes me feel a whole lot better....not.) I have no axe to grind. Tell me what point I am missing. If it's merely that the buyer installs the wall outlet and then hears a difference, that's not good science. The observer is a reader of internet threads like this one, which creates a certain expectation of the results, and he or she has paid good money for the new part; the bias is built in. (And by the way, there is some danger associated with amateur electricians messing with wall outlets.)
Where did Lewm state that he had scientific proof of that? Just stated he had a belief as do I and MANY others. Why jump down his throat like that, odd to single him out in such a fashion don't you think?
For me, my decision to purchase the blue outlet was not based upon the claims of Synergistic Research or science either. That’s me - I’m not all about measurements, etc. I tend to look for commonalities in user reviews. When I finally purchase something, it is my own experience and opinion, however, that will trump all others. And, it’s whether it works in my system or not. It could work fine in someone else’s system and not in mine and the reverse is probably true as well. I’m also not looking for an outlet to specifically change the tonality of my system. For me, it needs to make it sound subjectively (to me) better. In the end, that could be detail, transparency, and it could possibly be tonality too. The point is that I’m not looking for anything in particular going in, just wanting a better result one way or another.
The mention of expectation bias is probably true for some folks. However, I don’t think it applies to everyone when evaluating audio/video products. I’m too picky and too concerned about the money I spend to have the expectation bias. In fact, my bias often goes the other way - the product is going to have to prove itself, because I can’t believe it is that good. The blue outlet, for example, has been up and down for me over the last week or two. Once it settles in, I’ll make up my mind on it.
I am using a Cruz Audio and I would vouch for it but I can’t remember what my stereo sounded like without it. Anybody familiar with Cruz Audio and would it be advantages to replace it with the Blue?
Well that is the beauty of the Synergistic Research Blue outlet. You can try it your self and in your own system and return it during the 30 day trial period for a refund. The total cost of the experiment is about $6.00- return postage. And since it is mostly broken in after 3 days you can go back and forth between the Blue and the Cruz Maestro outlets during this time.
I believe you will hear a difference, but really only you can decide if it is worth it. I personally believe you will prefer the Blue.
Jea, Your point is fairly taken. However, there is some "science" around power cords and interconnects, to name just two elements. Power cords may be heavy enough in gauge to transfer the current needed by the component, or not. They may be shielded, or not. They may be configured so as to be capacitative and/or inductive to one degree or another, and there are some known ways in which these properties could affect sound. Likewise for ICs, if you delete the bit about current carrying. Plus, as you suggest, I rely upon personal experience and the reports of a few trusted sources as regards these and some other ancillaries. But in the case of the SR AC outlets, we have.... what? What is there about a black AC outlet that would make it sound different from a blue or a red one? (Obviously, there could be differences that I don't know about, but why doesn't SR tell me about them, is my point?)
The Audioquest duplex that you referenced looks to have similar construction to the Cardas 4181US duplex with
features like Beryllium Copper contacts, plated with Rhodium over Silver. The Audioquest duplex is only plated with silver but it includes a wall plate.
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