Synergistic Red Fuse ...

I have to agree that the SR Blacks are a significant improvement over the Reds in my Bryston BDP-2. They do require quite a bit of break-in for the sound to fully stabilize, but you will mostly have fun along the way. You seriously need to give them 150 - 200 hours to really get a handle on them sonically. To me, the Black fuses create a stunningly dramatic drop in the noise floor allowing for new levels of transparency and dimensionality. Textural expression of voices and instruments is strikingly apparent and real. Bass is amazing. Decay goes on forever. And on and on. Now I’m thinking of replacing the Reds in my DAC/Pre and my tube monos...

I have had "designer" fuses in my equipment for many years, starting with HiFi Tuning Supreme fuses in my Primaluna tube monos. I ultimately ditched the HiFi Tuning for the SR Reds in my amps and never looked back. Reds also went into my Bel Canto DAC/Pre and my Bryston BDP-2. The results were stunning, especially in the BDP-2 which, in my system, had a kind of range-y bass (ethereal--and not in a good way). In January I was able to upgrade the Reds in the Bryston to Blacks within the 30 day trial period--just lucky since I didn't know the Blacks were coming out. Today I received a Black to swap tor the Red in The Bel Canto. This is already making great sound, though my own experience tells me that they will come in and out of focus and tonal balance for at least 150 hours.

Everything the Reds do the Blacks simply do better. As enumerated by many others on this thread, the Blacks produce an even lower noise floor, better delineated images within the soundstage, better 3-D dimensionality, better defined and more extended bass and, something not often mentioned but very apparent to me, is that instrumental textures are so much better resolved. Particularly bowed-bass and other strings, reeds, horns, male and female vocals, even Hammond B-3.

I have really enjoyed following this thread... 

I have absolutely no idea how audiophile fuses "work," but long personal experience with them tells me emphatically that they do. With one recent exception, I have not blown a fuse in a piece of audio equipment in over forty years, which takes us to the bad old days of amplifier output fuses when, back in my high school and college days, we most often "repaired" the fuse with a bit of aluminum foil just to keep the party going.

Since then, I have never had a piece if audio gear fail due to a faulty fuse. I have never had catastrophic damage from lightning either, but I use Shunyata Venom Defenders to minimize that possibility, though living in the SF Bay Area, an earthquake is more likely to take me out than a lightning strike. The last and only fuse that failed on me was a Synergistic Research Red Fuse of factory rating installed in a well designed music server at start-up. An uprated replacement served me well until I upgraded it to an SR Black Fuse of the same uprated value a few weeks back. And yes, the Black sounded much better than the Red.

All of us are different in myriad ways, having, for example, different risk profiles and degree of need for objective certainty versus, perhaps, trust in subjective experience. For product liability reasons, I would never expect a manufacturer to approve my use of non-UL rated audiophile fuses so I have never asked. I accept the slight risk that some tweak I might employ in my continual quest to get just a little bit closer to the original performance encoded in my beloved recordings might lead to component damage. Having said that, I do have my limits: I'm not likely to buy a rechargeable hover-board any time soon either.

I have two Blacks arriving Monday to replace the Reds in my Primaluna monos. I'm planning on moving the Reds to the plate fuses. I'm not sure that replacing the plate fuses will make any kind of difference, but I have to do something with the Reds as there doesn't seem to be much of an aftermarket for audiophile fuses, except among friends. I'll check back in later next week after I have a chance to cook the new Blacks...

I believe that's the UEF material.

Same orientation (S to the rear) with the Bryston BDP-2 in my experience. 

On the basis of David's list above, I would add the following as benefitting from the SR Red and now replaced with SR Black fuses:

Bryston BDP-2
Bel Canto DAC 3.7
Primaluna Prologue Six

Gonna try a Black fuse in my REL R-328. Arrives Friday. Last place to try one in my current setup. We shall see...

The Black fuse for my REL arrived a day early! Gotta love highend-electronics teamed with the good ol' post office. I installed it into my R-328 and noted the crossover level (30Hz) and level (about 9:30), levels which have remained stable over a number of system changes (excluding speakers of course). 

Honestly, the first thing I noticed after the change was that the sound stage was better organized, more articulate and seemed to have a greater degree of dimensionality (properly set up RELs can do this, and the Black fuse enhanced this effect in  my system). This was obvious right away on the first cut from Patricia Barber's "Companion," an album, with which I am very familiar.  The first cut, "The Beat Goes On" has congas and syncopated hand-claps for percussion. Michael Arnopol's bass on "Use Me" digs deep but also has a great deal of texture and overtone structure, and this was further enhanced with the Black over the stock fuse.  Bass weight and control were clearly improved.

My system is a 2 channel setup is for both music and video. What was kind shocking was that the sound of TV show themes and familiar commercials took on a noticeably different and improved character. They have more and better bass and the noise floor seems to have dropped, revealing greater detail! I noticed the same thing when I upgraded my DAC. How crazy is that? (And some of you will no doubt say, seriously dude you are very crazy.)

BTW, my REL is fed by a Synergistic AC Master-Coupler Subwoofer Active AC cord and the high-level Speakon cable is a Kimber CU.

Yes it will be interesting to see how the Black fuse morphs in the sub as it breaks in. With my streamer, DAC/pre and amps, my first impressions after going Black were generally positive, but over time there were alternate moments of, "Where did all that bass come from?" "Where did all the bass go?" "Oh my dog, that's better than perfect--stay like that!" and so on.

As I said above, my sub settings have been very stable over time, and any time I'm moved to change the level or crossover a notch, I end up back where I started so, with break-in, I will be interested to see whether I am moved to adjust the sub during the next few weeks as the fuse does its thing.

Another observation about these fuses is that they seem to make each component you put them in more like themselves, assuming the components are well enough engineered in the first place. In the situation at hand, the Black fuse just seems to be enhancing the REL-ishness of my sub in my system.

Off topic, a well chosen and well set up sub in a good room does do a lot more for the music than just go boom. In my experience, many people over-think things when doing set-up, and end up crossing over too high and setting the level too low.

nyame: I believe the B2 has three fuses, one at the IEC, and two internal rail fuses on the board. Sorry.

nyame:

I saw the info somewhere in the last week or two, but don't have a link for you. It might have been in the long AVS REL thread. Maybe do a find search on B2 or fuse? My R-328 has a Class D amp and the stock fuse is 9 amps, so I used a 10A Black fuse. As others have suggested, I slightly up-rate aftermarket fuses after my BDP-2 instantly ate a Black fuse at the factory rating.

I'm just checking back in on my experiment with adding a Black fuse to my REL R-328. I'm maybe 40-50 hours in, slowed a bit by the Warriors and the Sharks being in the championships and a few days spent under the weather. In one of my previous posts, I suggested that the sound tends to "morph" with fuse break-in and, at some point, you get to the "That's fantastic! Please stay like that!" phase. That's where I've been for the last couple of nights.

Notable albums have included John Hammond Jr.'s "Wicked Grin," an album of Tom Waits covers, Richard Thompson's "You? Me? Us?" (nude version), Rosanne Cash's "10 Song Demo," and Beck's "Morning Phase."

"Wicked Grin" seems to have been recorded, at least in part, in a real space. On Get Behind the Mule, some of the percussion is supplied by a leather shoe shuffling and tapping on the floor which nicely illuminates the left side of the sound stage. I've never heard that so clearly and is of a piece with the overall improvement in all aspects of the sound stage. On Jockey Full of Bourbon, the shakers and the button accordion in particular are positively 3-D. An obscure album to be sure, but a must for any Waits fan. Put up to it by their wives, Waits himself participates in the fun and the rest of the band is great.

The Roseanne Cash and Richard Thompson albums are very much unadorned, and not particularly "wet" in recording terms. I was mostly struck by increased yet completely unforced detail (i.e., lower noise floor) and a purity of tone that really made me sit up and pay attention in a relaxed way. Also, and Danny Thompson's double-bass playing on You? Me? Us?, always a fave, is simply stunning with the Black in the sub.

I am a big fan of "Morning Phase" but it is a full-bodied recording to say the least and, of course, the acoustic is studio-created. I have never heard the bottom end to be so well defined, while exhibiting remarkable authority, weight and slam. The latter characteristics, combined with an uncanny improvement is soundstage organization, clarity and dimensionality sum up my reaction the the improvement wrought by adding the Black fuse to my REL. In fact, I found myself shaking my head several times in disbelief.

I capped last night's listening session with a favorite cut from Mahavishnu Orchestra's "Inner Mounting Flame"-- You Know You Know. 70's analog tape hiss was present in all its glory, but the tune is sublime and it sounded fantastic...

Regarding the SR Black fuse morphing with break-in, even installed in my REL sub the higher frequencies became harsh for a time and then we went to the "bass all over the place" phase as well. 

As a result,  I was also moved to put micro fiber towels into the rear ports of my speakers which are, of necessity, rather close to the front wall. Oddly, I was also moved to simultaneously turn my REL down a notch in volume. 

Patience during break-in is rewarded by the sound I'm currently experiencing--smooth, liquid, detailed and extended. Might be time to bump the REL up a notch. We'll see. Sounds fantastic right now...

I'm retired and am no shill for SR. I worked in the AV industry for a couple of years in the early aughts as a break from management consulting, but we didn't carry SR (and, at the time I paid retail for the SR AC Master Couplers). I'm long retired and have no financial or other interest in SR or any other audio brand. I pay retail for every thing I buy, unless I find a sale or closeout on something I want to check out. My components are relatively modest, but they are of sufficient quality that I can easily recommend the improvements wrought by accessories from SR and others (I'm a big fan of Herbie's products as well). At this point I only have one SR cable in my system (on my REL), so I can attest that you don't need to have an all SR ecosystem to benefit from the fuses, HFTs, FEQs, and such.

Having said all that, I AM a shill for teen car control clinics, the real deal where we get the kids out on the skid-pad, learning emergency stopping and lane change skills, practicing what to do when you put two wheels (or more) off the pavement, even backing and parallel-parking drills. We give the kids and their parents a couple of race track laps at speed and then let the kids safely drive their cars on the track with a skilled instructor riding shotgun. These are skills that simply aren't taught in the typical "Driver's Ed" course, at least in California.

Tonight’s feature is McCoy Tyner’s New York Reunion with Joe Henderson, Ron Carter and Al Foster. Magnificent. Spectacular sound-stage with clearly delineated instrumental outlines, yet without any crispies at their outer edges, And Ron Carter's bass is otherworldly--deep, tight and with a goodly amount of slam.

Thanks for the tip on McCoy Tyner's Manhattan Moods. I'll check it out. Interesting that on Amazon some CD copies are priced at over $100, but it's available for $16 with Prime shipping and four bucks plus postage used...

I'm enjoying Shirley Horn's "The Main Ingredient" tonight, a 1995 recording made in her NYC living room after the clubs shut down (and after a chicken and greens dinner she prepared as the story goes). Participants include Joe Henderson, Roy Hargrove, Billy Hart and Elvin Jones among others. A great performance and pretty impressive sonics given where it was recorded. The drums, vocal and piano have a surprising amount of air around them (thank you, SR), though other aspects of the recording are a bit dry. Check it out...

More like 150 to 200 hours. Life's a bitch.

You will be rewarded in the end...

Temptation is a favorite of mine and very revealing of improvements in bass definition and extension.

Enjoy!

I'm just about to close a deal on a Synergistic Black outlet for $175.  What hath dog wrought???

Yeah, the SR Black outlet experiment should be interesting. I won't receive it or have a chance to mess with it for a week or two, but I am curious.

In the meantime, I gonna try a really crazy--even for me--tweak, and that is to use a 12x8x2 Himalayan salt block to support my amplifiers via my existing Herbie's Iso-Cup and IsoBall footers. Some say crystalline salt has a resonant frequency near-equal to the Schumann resonance, which is 7.83 Hz. Synergistic's FEQ and Atmosphere mess around with the Schumann resonance as well. I can't find any online evidence to say that anyone has tried something as stupid as this, or at the very least, if they did, they kept it to themselves.

If it doesn't work out, I can still gift them to my carnivorous friends as a novel way to BBQ!

In the meantime, here on planet earth, I'm really enjoying the Bill Evans chestnut, Waltz for Debbie. Just now, My Romance (Take 1) is dancing in front of me. It's been a while since I last played this good'un....

To complement my system's phalanx of SR Black fuses, I just ordered a second Black outlet for my second dedicated line. It was gonna be kind of a pain to replace even one of them as the two lines share a double outlet box back in a corner, so I figured replacing both at the same time will be easier than not and regretting it later. I should have the two outlets some time next week and will hook them up as soon as possible (they will be replacing PS Audio Power Ports).

This second line powers the REL along with some noisy bits (and noisy bits on each circuit are all plugged into Blue Circle Audio PLC FX-2 filters). Because the system spans the two circuits(via the REL high-level connection from the amps). I have been worried about ground potential differences and ground loop problems. I did have a hum when the REL was first connected with its three wires, the solution from the REL distributor was to leave the ground wire unconnected. The REL played just fine and the hum was gone, so it was clearly getting its ground reference from somewhere. After I installed the Black fuse into the REL, I decided to try tying the chassis ground of the REL to the star ground post on my Nordost QBase which powers the main components on the other line.

The two circuits are on a tandem breaker (not two separate breakers ganged) and my guess is that they were wired on two different hot phases relative to neutral/ground. I'm seriously considering hiring an electrician to check the box and change things around so that both circuits are on the same phase. The grounds seem to be fine, as the 22ga. REL chassis ground wire doesn't get warm at all suggesting there is no meaningful difference in ground potential at the outlets, which is good since I have tied the grounds of the two circuits in two places--at the breaker box and at the outlets. If code allows, I will also ask the electrician to drive another ground stake to connect to the star ground on the QBase

It shall be interesting to see whether the Black outlets can enhance the sound beyond the dramatic changes wrought by the Black fuses. It's kind of addictive (OK, it is addictive). We shall see...

I received my two SR Black outlets today and I have to say that they are not outwardly impressive in any way. Black plastic, a steel back-strap stamped "spec grade" and the code-required tamper-resistant nylon "shutters" over the hot and neutral slots. About the only externally visible mod is what may be black UEF paint on the heads of the hot terminal screws. I'm planning on installing them tomorrow, replacing the existing PS Audio Power Ports as the first receptacles in line with each of my two dedicated 20 amp circuits. Updates promised.

The crazy thing I did today (or maybe just one of the crazy things I did today) was to install two 14 pound 12" x 8" x 2" Himalayan salt blocks under my Primaluna tube monos. The amps have long been supported on Herbie's Balls and Iso Cups which in turn were placed on three smallish granite tiles I used to "couple" them to my living room's oriental rug. It has always sounded pretty good to me (and better than the amps just plopped on the carpet), but changing to the salt slabs clearly exposed a significant weakness to this approach.  

The soundstage expanded yet again in all dimensions with rock (salt) solid edge-less images floating within and even better bass depth and definition--akin to the sonic improvements generated by the SR Black fuses (hello, almost-the-original-thread-topic!), the HFTs, the Atmosphere and the FEQ.

The simple explanation for this is that by substituting a single fairly massive slab base under the three-point Herbie's footers was way better than my three tiles on the carpet approach. In fact I have long considered what chunk of something I could cost-effectively place under the amps, be it granite, butcher block, acrylic, etc. And it's probably true that by ditching the tiles in favor of almost any kind of slab would make for better sonics. Science demands I experiment further (with other slabs or other footers), but at present I am disinclined.

So, why did I choose the salt blocks? I can't quite remember how I got the idea (they're advertised for cooking), but at about $60 for two, I figured I couldn't lose as I could always gift them to my cooking-nerd friends if they didn't improve things audio-wise. From an audio voo-doo perspective, salt is said to have a resonance very near the Schumann Resonance of the earth, which just happens to be the (claimed) operating mechanism of the SR Atmosphere and FEQ field generators, not to mention that they generate negative (good) ions when heated, pretty much making me a genius and finally providing the sure-fire path to fame and riches that has always eluded me.

Or perhaps not...

I just installed the SR Black outlets. The first thing I realized as I dug in to the project was that I was replacing not PS Audio Power Ports as I thought, but rather two Shunyata Research SR-Z1s, very robust Hubbell-based outlets which are cryo-treated in a proprietary process. I wonder who crept into my living room and put those in there? I have been using a non-magnetic stainless steel outlet cover which will be replaced later in the week by a Furutech dampened unit. All grounds were properly tied inside the outlet box per code.

Anyhoo, first impressions are that in comparison to the SR-Z1s, the Black outlets make for a much more open, delicately detailed sound, maybe slightly more forward than before, while possessing excellent harmonic structure. To use a visual metaphor, it's as if the stage is more brightly lit. Bass speed and definition is much improved over the Shunyatas as well, while extension is so far something of a wash. Soundstage depth so far seems a bit fore-shortened, however, this being the main negative I detect out of the gate, though it seems to be improving as I continue to listen.

Updates to follow...

Twenty-four hours in, and all I can say right now is, "Wow!"

UPDATE:  A few days ago, I replaced the two Shunyata Research SR-Z1 outlets on the dedicated lines feeding my system with the Synergistic Research Black UEF duplex AC receptacles. Bottom line, I spent $500 and, in the process, got new speakers in return. Or a new amp. Or a new DAC. Yes, what I am saying is that at more than 72 hours in, the Black UEF duplex outlets are delivering at least a component level upgrade to the sound of my system.

The path to glory during the break-in process has been quite uneven as those of you experienced with the SR Black fuses will understand. As with the fuses, the outlets do sonically morph significantly over time, while giving glimpses of their final sound along the way.

At just 24 hours in, things locked in to such a degree that I actually got goosebumps and an involuntary grin while listening to a reference track that I have heard dozens, if not a hundred times before. From there, things took several steps backward, with the sound becoming somewhat disjointed, fore-shortened, forward and a bit harsh. One characteristic that has been consistent throughout is that the sound has been very open on top, much more like the real thing, particularly on voices, piano and percussion. I never thought of the SR-Z1s as being dark per se, but the Black outlets are in a different league.

Let me also say that given the topics covered, this thread has been remarkably positive and troll free, encouraging me to share my experiences rather than simply gawking at the sh*t shows that many forums devolve into.

I have never considered cables, vibration damping or AC power delivery to be in the realm of tweaks. In my more than 45 years experience in this hobby I have come to believe that everything matters, and that what is wrong upstream can never be "fixed" downstream, say, with upgraded speakers. It follows then, at least to me, that you can't get any more upstream than the AC supply.

I've been CD-only since I sold all my LPs and my beloved Simon Yorke S-9 Record Player (serial no. 005) back in 2007. A few years ago I started burning my CDs to an externally powered hard drive in AIFF format using iTunes on a Mac Book Pro so I didn't have to mess with the discs themselves (great for parties too with playlists and iPad control). Connections started with wireless to an Airport Express to my DAC on TOSlink. I got better sound  by hard-wiring using USB and better sound still by converting USB to SPDIF via BNC and currently via ST glass fiber. I added Amarra HiFi to iTunes as the decoding engine to great effect and added a multi-rail linear power supply for the computer, the drive and piggy-backed Uptone Audio Regen hubs. Along the way I picked up a Bryston BDP-2 music player as a parallel source and got still closer to analog nirvana (with amazing help from two SR Black fuses). There is a huge amount of musical information on a well recorded and mastered plain ol' Redbook CD and breakthroughs in playback technology just keep coming.

David:

To your list, I would definitely add the SR HFTs and FEQ and/or Atmosphere. At over 100 hours in, the SR Black outlets continue to evolve for the better. Renders truly stunning music...

ptss:

Yes, you missed something.

charles1dad:

I too, am a Monk fan. In my office I have a very interesting Jim Marshall photo of Monk in his NY apartment's kitchen, he in a silk smoking jacket-like affair with matching hat, posing awkwardly with his wife and kids dressed for church, a bottle of Hennessey on the stove...

charles1dad:

Thanks for the recommendations. I lost a great deal of my jazz collection when I sold my 4,000-ish LPs, and along with it, a number of Monk albums.

On your recommendation, I just ordered them from Amazon....

nyame:

I don't have that one. I do also have I Remember Miles and You're My Thrill. Thanks for another good 'un to check out!

One thing that has struck me as I added the SR Black fuses and now at about 150 hours with the Black Outlets is that undesirable artifacts that I previously attributed to various forms of physical resonance (speaker, room, component, etc), were more accurately lying in the supply of electrical power to my system.

I mentioned here the other day that I believed adding the Black outlets to my system in-effect gave me a new set of speakers, and it is the absence of these resonant artifacts that makes me feel this way. My current speakers are really quite modest, but in this respect they remind me of my old 180 pound WATT Puppy sixes, or how I imagine such heroically inert speakers the various Magicos are.

With these Black fuses and outlets, transients start and stop on a dime and the bass definition is crazy good. I've been playing albums that I've owned through countless equipment swaps that, while I love them for the performance, I always felt the sonics--and here I'm focusing on the lowest registers--were inherently simply too fat and sloppy to ever be rendered with agility and anything approaching realism.

Here I'd submit one of my all time faves, Holly Cole's "Temptation." With each additional application of SR Black devices, I've gotten a much better impression of what's actually going on in the mix. The extension and depth is as good or better than before, but the texture and nuance of the bass line and drums is so much better delineated now. There are a number of other troublemakers that I have been throwing at the "new" system just to see (and hear) how they are rendered (hello first Fiona Apple CD, hi Alanis Morrisette, what's happening, Bruce Cockburn?)

Anyone else have this sense?

labtec:

Jeepers, who peed in your Cheerios this morning???

With all the kerfuffle hereabouts, I almost forgot to tell you how much I enjoyed listening to Marc Ribot and the Prosthetic Cubans (Los Cubanos Postizos) last night, a wonderful and wonderfully recorded album built around Cuban beats with compositions by Arsenio Rodriguez. The clarity and tone of Ribot's guitar is quite stunning. Check it out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwK2x0AhsMk

Switching gears big time, I closed out the evening with Aimee Mann's DVD "Live at St. Anne's Warehouse" which features Julian Coryell (Larry's son) on guitar. Fun!!!

Bernie Madoff. Now there's a thread killer....

Geez, I am getting old. I thought this lovely thread ended two pages ago, then tonight I noticed two more pages. I could have done without the page before this one, but it's nice to see things back on track and positive.

Earlier this week, I subjected my system to the "Grog test." Grog (actually Greg--a friend since high school) is famous for passing out early. But this time, with my system sounding really good (SR Black outlets fully stabilized) and Grog listened until after two AM (and he was visiting the West Coast from Chicago, so we had the time zone difference working against this outcome as well). Grog is no audiophile, but he likes music, and he really enjoyed what he heard that night. Apologies to my long suffering neighbors.

One of the fun aspects of having one's music library accessible via iPad is that you can just turn it over to a guest and let them have at it. It's fun to have another person crawl through your collection. It's like getting a different perspective on the music you loved enough to have purchased and added to your library....

On a happier note, I am chilling to Olu Dara's album "Neighborhoods." Very highly recommended for performance and sonics, along with his late-nineties debut "In the World: From Natchez to New York."

Very cool. Check 'em out some time...

As I understand things around here, this is a thread devoted to sharing our PERSONAL experiences,initially with the Synergistic Research Red fuses and subsequently expanded to include other fuses as well as other AC power products.

It follows then, if you have no PERSONAL experience with any of these products or product categories then you are just wasting time--yours (which you seem not to value), and that of the many folks who have participated in this thread sharing their PERSONAL experiences in good faith. A few posters here actually tried these products and found that they could perceive no sonic changes, or no changes for the better. I totally respect them and their views and I appreciate their contributions to this thread.

But seriously, if your scientific understanding of AC power and its interaction with audio power supplies and other devices on a circuit is not post-doc PhD with extensive personal applied experience in these areas, I am really not interested in your theories about why nothing in the power supply chain could possibly influence my perception of a re-created musical performance in my home.

I use and enjoy these products, and my non-audiophile friends (who have no idea what I’ve been messing with) are generally capable--unprompted--of hearing and noting differences in the sound of my system over time.

So, to put it bluntly, if you have no personal experience with these products, feel free to lurk, or to sincerely ask questions, but otherwise, please save yourself the agita and the wasted keystrokes, and let the rest of us get on with our little hobby....

I'd say Geoff definitely passes the Turing test...

Ah, Stardust. Great choice. Maybe tomorrow night for me, having been to the theater earlier tonight and not possessing enough bandwidth left for music tonight....

I also admit to really liking some of the Daniel Lanois-produced albums from Willie (Teatro) and Emmylou (Wrecking Ball) as well as Robbie Robertson's eponymous solo album....

David:

Well put. It is the unforced addition of detail that is at the heart of the sonic contribution of the SR Black fuses and outlets....

Andy

Way off topic (though the goodness of the SR Black fuses and outlets shine on through everything in the chain), but this afternoon I got Tidal working through my Bryston BDP-2 music player and it sounds extraordinarily good using multimode duplex fiber to isolate the Ethernet ground noise from the network. Next up is figuring out how to incorporate the Roon meta-data service into the picture.

Keeps my retired-ass 61 year old mind working, so I've got that going for me...

David:

"The enhanced spacial information, the blacker background, and overall more relaxed sound makes streaming a much more satisfying experience than before I installed the Black fuses and Black outlets. "

A great concise summary of the SR Black products contribute to the sound. Except for the typo. ;-)

geoffkait

I see what you did there!!!

Also, too, way off topic, but Tidal sounds very good though my setup--if a bit more two dimensional than playing CDs ripped to AIFF via iTunes. Tidal uses FLAC. Background is totally silent. Reminds me of hearing familiar music rendered at the movie theater. Very full and possessing a huge soundstage, but again, a things are a bit two dimensional. 

I've had quite the time playing "Stump Tidal." It led to a Savoy Brown session last night and a Traffic session tonight....

I recently acquired another ten-pack of HFTs via AG and used most of them on my very modest speakers and a few more on USB cable ends, pushing me to a stage five install or beyond (sounds a bit like Scientology, don't it?).

I am so enjoying Patricia Barber's "Nightclub" right now. Extended,very well-defined bass, vanishing noise floor, open top-end with a great sense of space, and a glorious shimmer, ring and detail on the cymbals....

Bumpfest!!!

Right now I'm digging Rosanne Cash's 10 Song Demo with full SR regalia sans any SR cables (only one powering my REL). Read 'em and weep--Black fuses, outlets, Atmosphere, FEQ, dozens of HFTs and a Tranquility Base for my BDP-2 and its USB drive. Sounds sublime.

I'm a happy boy....

+1 on Hampton Hawes!