Charles, thanks for that last comment. If these fuses have that kind of impact in the coincident gear, the decision to invest in these fuses becomes pretty easy. Since I have stock fuses in nearly everything, the improvement should be pretty substantial. I intend to proceed in a very slow deliberate fashion however, replacing one fuse at a time, allowing break in to occur before proceeding with the next purchase. I am also intrigued by some of the comments on the AM beeswax fuses. I can't help but wonder if they might not be a superb choice for the franks. Beeswax in a fuse is the kind of wacky stuff Jerry comes up with that causes some to smirk, but I have never seen his stuff fail to deliver. At any rate, I will have an SRB fuse for my CSL by next weekend. I'll probably proceed to the sources, and finish with the Franks. |
Mid40s, which MW Oppo do you have? The 105 is usually powered by the 9.9 power supply, not the 9.0. Those two power supplies are very different animals. At any rate, I have found the 9.0 to be very sensitive to power cords, so I would have thought the same might apply to fuses. Wig claimed an OMG experience with his ModWright Sony 5400 when replacing the fuses with SR black. I think both the PS 9.0 and my HAPZ1 use the same fuse. If so, I'm going to buy just one and try it in both to see which gives the greater improvement. |
After two weeks my first SR black arrived. I installed it in my Coincident line stage, where it replaced a stock fuse. I did not detect any of the brightness or hard edge reported by others. I noticed a modest increase in resolution as judged by the clarity of the German in Schutz's Die Sieben Worte. A more significant increase in tonal beauty was noted. It was one of those deals where you start running through music you hadn't heard in a while, because you just didn't want to stop listening. I suspected their might be a hint of increased air, but it wasn't more than a hint. Soundstage and imaging were inconclusive.
I did not attempt to reverse the direction yet. I plan on leaving the preamp powered up today and letting it idle.
Wig, I plan on replacing the fuses in my PS 9.0 and HAPZ1 next. I hope the results parallel your experience with your MW Sony. If all goes as expected with the preamp fuse, I will probably place an order for the source fuses in a couple weeks. |
Update on my experience. The black has about 40 hours of burn in time in my Coincident Line stage. A few minutes ago, I reversed the direction of the fuse. Degradation of sound quality was immediately obvious, so I had the optimal direction to begin with. I am going to wait a few more days and put the stock fuse back in to get a feel for how much burn in has helped. Preliminarily, I would say this is a worthwhile and cost effective upgrade, but it falls somewhat short of transformative. As a comparator, I just replaced the stock feet on my ModWright Sony HAPZ1 with Edensound bear paws, a $160 upgrade, and enjoyed a much more significant improvement in sound.
The ModWright Sony takes 2 3.15 amp slo blo's, which is also what I would need for my Coincident franks. I will probably order a pair next week and try them in both the Sony and the Franks and evaluate the improvement. It is likely either the Franks or the Sony will benefit. If not, I will send them back and perhaps try the AM beeswax fuses. |
Charles, I will be out of town for a few days and hiking this weekend. Its likely to be sometime next week when I hit 60-100 hours. I do hope I will see additional improvement with more hours, but right out of the box I would have called this a good return on investment. Still, its not hard to do better for the money with the right tube, or as I said, a good set of feet. If I realize a similar improvement with each new fuse or pair of fuses, the total improvement would be significant for a $700 investment. That would be money well spent. We will see. I really like what the fuse did qualitatively, but I'd like to see a bit more quantitatively. It is a happy coincidence (no pun intended) that the Franks and Sony both take a pair of the same fuse. I will be surprised if I hear an insufficient improvement to warrant keeping the fuses.
Frank, your question to Charles is an excellent one. There is some variability in the reports. Is the variability attributable to variations in equipment, incoming AC quality, ambient EMI/RFI, listener acuity or preference, fuse to fuse differences, or some combination of all of these variables? SR does a good thing by offering a generous return policy, which allows us all to reduce this tweak to an experimental question. |
Audiolabyrinth, I had the same thought on wanting a good comparison between the AM beeswax and Black fuses, but given the variability in responses to the blacks, and the apparent sensitivity differences between different pieces of equipment, it is going to be hard to extrapolate one person's experience to my needs or preferences. |
Charles, I may be getting there. Things are sounding pretty fine tonight. I may do some a/b with the stock fuse tomorrow night. |
Charles, I reversed the direction last week and the difference was quite obvious. I had the correct direction from the beginning. I am eager to do the A/B tonight, and based on the results, will make a decision on buying additional fuses. |
I'm guessing I've got 80-100 of burn in on the Black that is in my Coincident CSL. Tonight I did an A/B with the stock fuse. Replacing the Black with the stock fuse made an immediately obvious difference. Everything just went flat. Very 2 dimensional, loss of dynamics, loss of harmonic richness. Put the black back in and everything went back to what I have been hearing recently. Amazing, how can a fuse do this? I think I will be buying more. |
Charles, I am thinking that getting a pair of 3 A slo-blo is up next. Both the Franks and my HAPZ1 take 2 3A slo's, so it is almost a slam dunk that one of those will benefit substantially.
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I've got about 50 hours on the two SR blacks I installed in my ModWright Sony HAPZ1 now. Last night, I removed them and put the stock fuse back in. The effect was exactly the same as A/B'ing stock vs SR black in my Coincident CSL. The sound went two dimensional with loss of dynamics and a step backwards in complexity of harmonics. I reinstalled the fuses one at a time, and found that the fuse serving the hard drive was far more important than the fuse labeled "mains." Next up I am either going to buy one more 3.15 A slo, and fuse my Coincident Franks with the SR Blacks leaving the stock fuse in the mains slot, or else buy a fuse for my MW PS 9.0 power supply.
Like others, I am really surprised how much difference these fuses can make. Where these fuses make a difference, the difference is substantial. |
Knghifi, looking down on the HAPZ1 with the front closest to me, the fuses were installed with the S to the left and the R to the right. Again, I found the directionality to be rather obvious. The fuse in the front is labeled HDD live. The one towards the back is labeled Mains Live. Look off to the left and towards the back for the label. I asked Dan Wright a number of questions, including "which fuse serves the DAC." He didn't answer that particular question.
It may be that the mains fuse is serving mostly uses such as the display, which would explain that fuse having little or no impact of the quality of sound. |
knghifi, my PS 9.0 has a 1.6 A slo in it. One of us better check with Dan. I don't know which fuse is correct. I was about to refuse the 9.0 and would love to use a 3.15 in there if that is OK. |
Charles, There is only so much that can be said about a fuse. We can talk about music until the end of time and never run out of things to say. Plus, for the vast majority of us, fuses, cables, tubes, etc. are a means to the end--music. Don't hold back! |
Too bad about Elrog, but this was an inevitable conclusion to what I've been told was essentially a 100% premature failure rate on their 300b tubes. I hope the new owner can get the flaws worked out, because they are superb sounding tubes. The new owner will have a lot of ill will and skepticism to overcome as well as the technical issues, which is not really where you want to be. It appears that they will accept limited liability for product failures on tubes already in the field. They will have a tough job getting previous customers to take another chance. I won't be buying anymore tubes from Elrog. |
Butler,
I tried the Blacks in my Sony HAPZ1 ES. I found that replacing one of the fuses made a noticeable improvement in sound, whereas the other made no discernible difference. I wonder if one fuse serves non audio devices ( front panel, transport etc). I reported my observations earlier in this thread. You might want to repeat my experiment. Could save you $120. |
Butler, One last thought. My HAPZ1 is a ModWright version, with a second isolated tube rectifier that provides DC to the analogue section. This being the case, your results might very well be different than mine. It might be safest to start with 2 fuses and send one back if you don't hear a difference. Since we don't really know exactly what these fuses service, it is hard to say if a stock HAPZ1 will give the same results as my ModWright version. |
Butler, this is my post from 3-19-16 below. The fuse in the "HDD live" slot is the one that made a difference. I had 2 fuses of the right value in other equipment, so I tried one at a time and then both. Again, adding the black fuse to the mains live slot pretty much made no difference. So I just ordered one for that spot and put the 2 I already had back in the other equipment.
"Knghifi, looking down on the HAPZ1 with the front closest to me, the fuses were installed with the S to the left and the R to the right. Again, I found the directionality to be rather obvious. The fuse in the front is labeled HDD live. The one towards the back is labeled Mains Live. Look off to the left and towards the back for the label. I asked Dan Wright a number of questions, including "which fuse serves the DAC." He didn't answer that particular question.
It may be that the mains fuse is serving mostly uses such as the display, which would explain that fuse having little or no impact of the quality of sound. "
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Butler, The ModWright work was absolutely worth it. I bought the HAPZ1 and used it long enough to get it burned in well before I sent it off. I made some pretty detailed notes on some music that was well known to me, so I did have a good point of reference for the stock vs. Modded versions. The current listing is $2995 for the mod. Dan occasionally runs specials where he discounts modifications at times when business is slow. Discounts are deep enough to be worth waiting for. If you decide to do this, shoot me an email and I can give you my thoughts on upgrade options, tubes, power cords etc. |
Butler,
The stock HAPZ1 is indeed very good. The stock HAPZ1 was on a par with my ModWright Sony 5400 ES player, which I found very surprising. The ModWright upgrades are a no-brainer if you want a one box plug and play music server with excellent performance. The big question is going to be, at 5K, what else is out there? For me, I really like having my entire library at my fingertips. No searching for CD XXYY that I didn't put back in its proper place. I've never had a regret about buying the HAPZ1 and doing the upgrade. |
