I’ve replaced all 5 of the SR BLACK fuses in my system with the new SR BLUE fuses. Cold, out of the box, the BLUE fuses stomped the fully broken-in SR BLACKS in a big way. As good as the SR BLACK fuses were/are, especially in comparison with the SR RED fuses, SR has found another break-through in fuses.
1. Musicality ... The system is totally seamless at this point. Its as if there is no system in the room, only a wall to wall, front to back and floor to ceiling music presentation with true to life tonality from the various instruments.
2. Extension ... I’ve seemed to gain about an octave in low bass response. This has the effect of putting more meat on the bones of the instruments. Highs are very extended, breathing new life into my magic percussion recordings. Vibes, chimes, bells, and triangles positioned in the rear of the orchestra all have improved. I’ve experienced no roll-off of the highs what so ever with the new BLUE fuses. Just a more relaxed natural presentation.
3. Dynamics ... This is a huge improvement over the BLACK fuses. Piano and vibes fans ... this is fantastic.
I have a Japanese audiophile CD of Flamenco music ... the foot stomps on the stage, the hand clapping and the castanets are present like never before. Want to hear natural sounding castanets? Get the BLUE fuses.
4. Mid range ... Ha! Put on your favorite Ben Webster album ... and a pair of adult diapers. Play Chris Connor singing "All About Ronnie," its to die for.
Quick .... someone here HAS to buy this double album. Its a bargain at this price. Audiophile sound, excellent performance by the one and only Chris Connor. Yes, its mono ... but so what? Its so good you won’t miss the stereo effects. If you’re the lucky person who scores this album, please post your results here.
Where the RED fuses took about 20 hours to sound their best, and the BLACK fuses took upwards of 200 hours of total break-in, the BLUE fuses sounded really good right out of the box ... and that’s without doing anything about proper directional positioning. Not that the BLUE fuses don’t need breaking in, they do. The improvement continues through week three. Its a gradual break-in thing where each listening session is better than the last.
Everything I described above continues to break new ground in my system as the fuses continue breaking in. Quite honestly, I find it difficult to tear myself away from the system in order to get things done. Its truly been transformed into a magical music machine. With the expenditure of $150.00 and a 30 day return policy there’s really nothing to lose. In my system, its like upgrading to a better pre amp, amp, CD player or phono stage. Highly recommended.
Kudos to Ted Denney and the entire staff at SR. Amazing stuff, guys. :-)
Frank
PS: If you try the SR BLUE fuses, please post your results here. Seems the naysayers, the Debbie Downers and Negative Nellie’s have hijacked the original RED fuse thread. A pox on their houses and their Pioneer receivers.
georgehifi Uh, how would that take the expectation bias out of it? Because if you pay $150 up front for a $2 fuse your gambling and ridding that winner home. That’s EXPECTATION BIAS. This saying (one of Ralph’s "Atmasphere’s") his best contributions to this thread. If you borrow something, you’ll be far more honest in your appraisal of it, and not embarrassed at what you’ve done. Also as many fusers say to "burn in" this "snake oil" fuse is longer than the return period is, $150 looser’s anyway you look at it.
>>>>>George, the burn in time is not longer than the warranty period. Now you’re being silly. Is your slide rule broken? Besides, most fancy fuses are noticeably better than stock fuses right out of the box, even when they’re in the wrong direction. Haven’t you been paying attention? And wouldn’t the customer would be EQUALLY honest in his appraisal either way, if he borrowed it or bought it with a warranty period? He’d have to critically evaluate how the fuse performed to be able to decide to keep it or return it. Alas, your theory is all wet. Hopefully this is a sign that you’re running out of ammo, trying to come up with every ridiculous thing you can think of. Maybe time to take a break and regroup. 😬
Frank Now you know George can't do that, just think what would happen if he did and actually heard the difference. He would have an instantaneous nervous breakdown on the spot as his whole world came crashing down around his ears.....
Because if you pay $150 up front for a $2 fuse your gambling and ridding that winner home.
A 30 day return policy, remember?
This past Monday, I installed a new Blue fuse in my "Grover" CD player, replacing the brand new stock fuse that was in there. There was an immediate improvement in SQ. After last night’s session, it sounds perfectly broken in.
Open up your wallet George and splurge a bit. All you have to lose if you don’t like it is the return shipping charge.
Uh, how would that take the expectation bias out of it?
Because if you pay $150 up front for a $2 fuse your gambling and ridding that winner home. That’s EXPECTATION BIAS. This saying (one of Ralph’s "Atmasphere’s") his best contributions to this thread. If you borrow something, you'll be far more honest in your appraisal of it, and not embarrassed at what you've done. Also as many fusers say to "burn in" this "snake oil" fuse is longer than the return period is, $150 looser’s anyway you look at it.
If one was to run a fuse, any of the types of fuses here in this thread being speculated on..any fuse of that size/type...under complex loads, through a complex set of distortion measurements on a audio precision system , lets say, an SYS-2722...and run a whole plethora of tests, on a hundred different fuses..a pattern of distortion measurements would be the result.
high order odd harmonic distortions.
The human ear is VERY sensitive to odd order harmonic distortion.
Again, this is the distortion pattern a fuse exhibits under the highly dynamic load that a piece of audio equipment puts the fuse under.
It is so well known, so well documented in the realm of expected fuse behavior... that an engineer of fuses and an engineer of audio equipment would look at you like you had three illiterate heads if you asked a question of it being measurable or noticeable in it’s effect on an audio amplifier.
Fuses, under dynamic loading conditions, exhibit high order odd harmonic distortion in how they deal with the current and voltage load.
the end.
High end audio fuses, do their best to eliminate or negate those expected distortions as much as is possible, so they are less audible.
I don’t buy high end fuses myself, I go for long time lag fuses (10kA flash break point), non magnetic ones with ceramic bodies, and that is as close as I can get to an expensive audiophile fuse with a custom designed filament, but... for about $3-5 each. This is the most linear distorting fuse you can get to without going ’audiophile’ and expensive. I’d even wager that the fuses that are cheap in the audio world, might just be made by these given companies like cooper-bussman, schurter (germany), SOC of Japan, and so on.
I can do this myself, but don’t recommend that others do it without research, as you can’t just stick any fuse in a socket, as you can easily invalidate the warranty and the safety of the device. No random fuse changes, just cause it sounds better.
After reading all the good reviews, I want to try replacing the fuses at the back of my CJ ART KT120 amps with Synergistic Research BLUE fuses but don't know which specification of the fuse to use. Can anyone who knows help me on this? Thanks.
(Re sending fancy fuses to audiophiles upon request) +1 Hypothetically a great idea. That then takes the expectation bias out of it as well. All prospective fuser’s should ask for this.
>>>Uh, how would that take the expectation bias out of it? Wouldn’t the psychology be that since the fuse company was essentially giving them something for nothing, at least temporarily, the audiophile would believe the fuses would work. Otherwise why would they make such a generous offer? The dude would EXPECT the fuse to work. That’s what expectation bias is. Obviously if it was a naysayer who asked for the fuse he’d be all psyched out believing the fuse wouldn’t work. Which is possibly what happened with the Wolfman and Moops.
jetter, I've always considered the source when responding. That, and I don't think teo audio or uberwaltz needs to be grouped with my experiences to make a point.
If "special" fuse makers sent samples to audiophiles who hadn’t thought much about fuses, and then said "if you like it please send me 150 bucks," I think the results may differ from the opinions here. I’m speculating of course.
+1 Hypothetically a great idea. That then takes the expectation bias out of it as well. All prospective fuser’s should ask for this. As you Wolf, I think the results may differ from the opinions here
teo audio, uberwaltz, nonoise, there is no need to eat crow. When someone says nasties about someone we are all familiar with we just ignore them anyway, regardless of the issue.
gdhal uberwaltz - .....Does he truly believe the rest of the audio community who does and can hear that difference( numbering in tens of thousands) are ALL delusional? .....
While I cannot speak or write to what wolf_garcia believes, I believe it is a distinct possibility that "yes", there is delusion at play. Just my opinion, of course. And, by your capitalization of the word ALL, it would seem you too agree that at least SOME are delusional.
>>>>>Gosh, maybe a whole lotta placebos goin’ on or Aliens at work or mass hypnosis or a gigantic cosmic joke or maybe some kind of industrial conspiracy on an unprecedented global scale. Or maybe it’s you who is delusional. Ever consider that? How about them 🍎🍎🍎
Sometimes it’s hard to admit you were wrong, or at least, fully aware of the situation after taking a stand. I’ve eaten enough crow to consider it an entree to avoid but it doesn’t negate the fact that I’ve passed it a few times, feathers and all. It didn’t lessen me, but it did make me more careful. In fact, I have a crow tattooed on my forearm out of respect.
uberwaltz - .....Does he truly believe the rest of the audio community who does and can hear that difference( numbering in tens of thousands) are ALL delusional? .....
While I cannot speak or write to what wolf_garcia believes, I believe it is a distinct possibility that "yes", there is delusion at play. Just my opinion, of course. And, by your capitalization of the word ALL, it would seem you too agree that at least SOME are delusional.
From what I can see and read on numerous other threads Wolf appears to be very level headed and solid with good honest reviews of equipment, like the Schiit Loki, I was just perusing as just one example. Plenty more but that was the most recent so I went with that for now.
I really have no idea why he has decided to take such a stance on fuses, just because he did not hear anything. Does he truly believe the rest of the audio community who does and can hear that difference( numbering in tens of thousands) are ALL delusional?
Al gave quite a post last night with many good well thought out plausibles but Wolf appears to have completely ignored that post and its content entirely and resumed normal service.
If I remember correctly, Al is/was a patent lawyer, among his many achievements. Either way, I do agree that a lot of accomplished people can do with more discipline from other studies. 👍 (myself included) 😖
While my background is mainly as you stated, Nonoise's statement was correct as I'm also a licensed attorney and patent attorney, with a JD degree as well as BSEE and MSEE degrees. Now fully retired, as you mentioned. And thanks for the very kind words!
wolf_garcia Nobody knows the ratio of Audiophiles who like $150 fuses to those who don’t care, and unless Geoffkait has access to data from the "Special Fuse Manufacturers Society" sales results, nobody has any idea how popular or otherwise they are in the audio geek community as a whole.
>>>>Wolfie, you probably didn’t realize it but your friend and humble scribe is an audio insider. I have access to data. Tons of it. I was in an online conference two days ago with principals of HiFi Tuning and Synergistic Research and a dealer for both. Keep in mind I’m not even counting the sales of Isoclean, Audio Magic, Furutech, Create, Audio Horizons, etc. Capish? As for ratios, there were a couple negatives mentioned here. There was you. Then there was moopman. Those are the ones we know of. My ratio of 0.001 is actually giving you the benefit of the doubt. 😀
Note to almarg: And this is the guy you are propping up?
I may be (and often am) mistaken, but I believe Almarg is actually a retired ee with a background in digital and analog circuit design for military and other critical applications! Regardless, his comments are always well thought out, well written and courteously presented, to be sure OTOH, I wish some of the lawyers I work with had his engineering skills AND most especially that the engineers that I work with had his "lawyerly" skills ;-)
BTW, I've never seriously considered buying aftermarket fuses, I don't know if anything I've heard outside of my house had any, but given how full the rest of my life is, I've no interest in spending my listening time going down that rabbit hole.
Nobody knows the ratio of Audiophiles who like $150 fuses to those who don’t care, and unless Geoffkait has access to data from the "Special Fuse Manufacturers Society" sales results, nobody has any idea how popular or otherwise they are in the audio geek community as a whole. I’m already aware of how successful SR fuses are because the owner pointed out that they’re making millions from them. On this particular thread, which the OP starts with a hyperbole filled promotional message, you’re very likely to get responses tilted toward the fan base. I get that. I can safely assume that 100% or so of the Blue Fuse fans spent 150 bucks on those fuses thinking they might improve the sound of their gear pile, and If I had done that I might also want some support and a forum to report on what a good idea that was. That's only natural. The fuses I tested were lent to me, so I had no money in the game. So the idea that "smart people with discerning ears, money, etc." like them has a lot to do with the fact they bought them in the first place…If "special" fuse makers sent samples to audiophiles who hadn’t thought much about fuses, and then said "if you like it please send me 150 bucks," I think the results may differ from the opinions here. I’m speculating of course. I certainly am aware of what fuses technically are there for, and admire them for selflessly performing the task of protecting my gear…thank you fuses. But how or why they possibly make the gear sound better, perhaps by massaging the protons or straightening out the current flow or vibrating less than otherwise due to being internally coated with graphene or Quantum Dark Matter or making better contact with contacts or being in the proper direction, still remains as an unexplained mystery. One thing I doubt anybody is going to do is open a Blue fuse and see what’s in there…too expensive for that. I know many otherwise rational people bristle at the fact that I seriously doubt they actually hear any sonic benefits from their fuses, but they shouldn't care much about that because, hey, they paid to hear those benefits and by gum they should hear whatever they darn well please!
I then went on to request
(after your rebuttal) that you and others submit *any* alternative
procedure.
Not surprisingly, that too was/is to much to ask, and you/others never did.
I have stated here several times: I am willing to discuss, in public, a protocol to test the audible differences between
cables - including directionality - in what would be an objective,
scientific test that would also be held in public, such as at an audio store or audiophile club. This would allow others to participate at whatever level they choose.
If this interests you, please start a separate thread for that purpose and I'll respond. My only precondition is that this be done in public. That would help ensure a properly designed test and that this is not a scam.
What doesn’t make sense is why proponents such as yourself don’t take me up on the opportunity before you. You know, the Amy > Bob > Amy > Bob repeat a few more times and see if you can guess right test.
It's because I don't believe in cheap parlor tricks. I trust my ears: something you can very easily do, but won't.
I think it may be that statements like these, which indicate "digging one's heels in", is becoming painfully apparent as the naysayers refuse to concede the point that there is more than enough empirical evidence from novice enthusiasts to the very well heeled EE types that have tried fuses and hear the difference, even though measurements can't detect a difference.
They're down to a few, standard lines of rebuttal now and seem quite silly by using them over and over. Cognitive Dissonance could be the answer.
cleeds ..... You insist on privacy because this is a scam.... There’s nothing "inappropriate" about discussing listening tests on Audiogon.
No scam, I can assure you. In the scientific double blinded cable test thread, since closed to everyone, I posted - on 03-16-2018 6:56pm an EXAMPLE ONLY (pardon the keyboard problem) procedure, which for no good reason was rebutted and subsequently deleted. I then went on to request (after your rebuttal) that you and others submit *any* alternative procedure.
Not surprisingly, that too was/is to much to ask, and you/others never did.
So in effect, what you are stating about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of discussing listening tests is also not true.
”I would expect that unrecognized extraneous variables, for example differences in equipment warmup states, differences in AC voltage and noise characteristics, differences in room temperature or humidity (temperature is a fundamental parameter in the physics underlying the operation of semiconductors such as transistors, diodes, and integrated circuit chips), flushing of internal digital memory that occurs when power is cycled, etc., are responsible for **some** of the reported benefits.”
>>>>Another illogical argument. Why is it illogical, you ask? Because the reported benefits of fancy fuses occur IN SPITE of those unknown variables, differences in warm up states, differences in room temperature or humidity, or the underlying physics of anything, etc., NOT (rpt not) BECAUSE OF THEM. That’s the advantage of having a very large CONFIRMED user population on the order of many tens of thousands who have almost all had POSITIVE RESULTS. Those positive results were obviously obtained in every possible situation, not only the ones you refer to but many others. Thus, without further ado, I hereby throw all the negative results out. You know, Wolfie, Mapman, whoever.
... it was I who suggested that the communication be taken offline and made private ...
You insist on privacy because this is a scam. That’s why the moderators are deleting you. If you keep the discussion here in public, on the forum, we could discuss your proposed listening test. But that would expose your hustle, wouldn’t it?
There's nothing "inappropriate" about discussing listening tests on Audiogon.
I was skeptical also. I no longer am based on actually modifying and carefully listening to gear where I removed fuses and also added aftermarket fuses. The point I’m trying to make is I actually took the time, did the work, listened very carefully and in the end learned something.
However I have put countless hours into modifying gear and listening to the results. It is actually one of my passions and I have learned that parts do in fact sound different including fuses.
If anyone here has modifying or building skills I highly recommend that you try bypassing your fuses just for a listening session to hear the results. The fuse is playing a sound quality roll and listening bias has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I suppose it’s easy for me to now understand as I have spent so much time under the hood with parts like fuses.
I can see the scepticism point just fine, especially if it was limited to the couple of dozen proponents on this thread say.
However as sales appear to be in the tens of thousands that would indicate a lot of audio folk have taken the plunge. And lets face it in this little "high end tweaked " hobby of ours, tens of thousands must number quite a decent percentile of said audio tweakers.
Now it is possible out of those thousands there could be a lot of dissapointed customers, I guess they all dont haunt Agon forums...lol.
grannyring if I might propose an answer I would say knowledgeable people do in general understand the importance of a fuse and how it can affect sound quality. A fuse is a relatively simple device on the grand scale of things.
They also tend to be very skeptical about way more expensive "audiophile" fuses that make sonic claims to justify the cost with little or no concrete information (other than individual opinions where favorable) to back them up.
I am confounded as to why folks don’t understand the importance
of a fuse in terms of sound quality ... Come on folks try
for yourself.
They don't understand because they don't really want to understand or explore. That's become pretty obvious. And then there's the one poster who keeps dangling his apparent $25K hustle as an "opportunity."
Yes agreed. I am confounded as to why folks don’t understand the importance of a fuse in terms of sound quality. Bypass one and listen as you will quickly understand it is a bottleneck. Why don’t these same folks argue that a similarly sized diode, IEC prong material etc.., also don’t make a difference? What about those small, thin wired resistors? They all make a difference. What about small value caps? Come on folks try for yourself. All these parts matter. What about those short binding posts? Short wire runs from a board to an amp’s output binding posts? You bet they matter and quality materials and design make a difference.
I was sort of wondering the same myself? If it is supposed to be a reference to somebody sending him a SR Blue fuse to try I cannot remember seeing him make that statement anywhere here? Now I remember Wolf saying that. And I remember George saying he would NEVER try a Blue fuse.
🐑 shadorne It isn’t just implausible, it is as ridiculous as a nude emperor said to be wearing fantastic clothes that only wise audiophiles can see. This time it is only those with golden ears and only the most high end resolving systems that can hear the sound of a fuse coming out of their speakers.
The real answer for the audible effects is simply the “power of suggestion” - people think they hear a difference because they want to - after all nobody likes to admit that they were duped so the desire to imagine even a slight improvement is overwhelming.
Nice try, but we’ve moved beyond those angst ridden sentiments. Somebody’s following the wrong, you know .....
1. Many of the purported explanations of the benefits that have been reported to be provided by expensive fuses amount to descriptions of their physical characteristics, and/or descriptions of how they were manufactured, but do not explain how those characteristics would affect the power supply circuitry and/or audio circuitry that is downstream of the fuse within the component, at least to an audibly significant degree and in a way that would be consistently beneficial.
>>>That theory appears to be nothing more than a red herring, or some other logical fallacy, since it’s not (rpt not) necessary to explain what you’re referring to. It’s actually not necessary to explain anything. But what has been offered in way of “explanation” is that “expensive” aftermarket fuses incorporate a number of innovations that PROMOTE better sound quality. These innovations have been described a great many times on these threads. (Wolfie loses all credibility as a legitimate skeptic by his oft repeated claims that nobody ever gives any explanation at all. Give me a break! Which makes your promoting of Wolfie seem all the more bizarre.
Even NASA incorporates some of these fuse innovations in their fuses for space operations, as I described earlier. These innovations include but are not necessarily limited to RF shielding, vibration control, conductivity enhancement through pure wire and end caps. Also, as I’ve oft stated, It’s not up to the users group to EXPLAIN how fuses work. What we have provided in terms of data overwhelming user testimony is evidence, a preponderance of evidence, actually.
Addendum: Hats 🤠 off to you for backing off the “atmosphere fuse holder theory” which is obviously flawed. 😛
4.Wolfie, as well as many of those who are on the opposite side of this issue, have earned considerable respect in my book as a result of his and their many posts here over the years.
Those are the reasons I consider Wolfie’s question to be legitimate, and to have been mostly unanswered in the past despite the lengthy discussions that have occurred, involving many of the same protagonists, in various fuse-related threads going back at least as far as the “Fuses That Matter” thread which began in 2012. At the same time, of course, I certainly recognize that many highly experienced, sincere, and knowledgeable audiophiles have reported significant benefit from these upgrades. While at least a few members having similarly high caliber audiophile credentials have tried some of these fuses and found them to provide little or no benefit, including at least one exceptionally experienced member I can think of whose system costs well north of $50K.
>>>>>That entire argument is simply illogical. It contains all the major elements of the naysayer illogical arguments. I.e., Strawman argument, Appeal to Authority and even Appeal to Money. 😬 We have just established here that the number of folks who do not hear aftermarket fuses is probably much less than 1% of total aftermarket fuse customers, MOST OF WHICH HAVE BEEN SYNERGISTIC RESEARCH FUSES. in these fuse threads on Audiogon, in fact there have been ONLY A HANDFUL OF NEGATIVE REPORTS. so the WORLDWIDE ratio of POSITIVE TO NEGATIVE RESULTS for *all aftermarket fuses* tried by users, including users of second hand fuses, may well be circa 1000 to 1. The negative results would only be 0.001 or 0.1% of total users. That is being very generous. That, dear readers, does not a controversy make. Hel-loo!
Regardless of education, work experience, respect, years of experience, how vociferous or obstreperous, Intelligence, cost of system, we can throw the outliers out. You can promote Wolfie any way you like, but there are better educated, more experienced, richer and more respected audiophiles, with better systems, and a lot of them, who had POSITIVE RESULTS. As we all should know by know, NO SINGLE TEST can settle a debate. It’s only a data point. Too many things can go wrong. As much as this might pain the Naysayers, even the smooth talking ones, THERE IS NO CONTROVERSY. THE CONTROVERSY IS ONLY IN THE MIND OF THE NAYSAYERS.
nonoise - So thousands of people who do hear a difference are imagining it and about a dozen who haven’t tried it know better. That makes a lot of sense.
What doesn’t make sense is why proponents such as yourself don’t take me up on the opportunity before you. You know, the Amy > Bob > Amy > Bob repeat a few more times and see if you can guess right test.
"Most aftermarket fuses are what, about twenty bucks? So give us a break."
Ok Geoff, I get it, your prodigious posting on this subject is based on what you read that others have posted and on your memory from before the Walkman days. Your reading seems fine but I am still a little skeptical about the memory part since you seem to have trouble remembering the fuse economics lesson from four days ago, when I posted....
"Even the pedestrian SR20 fuses that the faithful here have blown by long ago cost $30. The blacks and blues that most here are discussing cost $120 and $150, respectively."
It isn’t just implausible, it is as ridiculous as a nude emperor said to be wearing fantastic clothes that only wise audiophiles can see. This time it is only those with golden ears and only the most high end resolving systems that can hear the sound of a fuse coming out of their speakers.
The real answer for the audible effects is simply the “power of suggestion” - people think they hear a difference because they want to - after all nobody likes to admit that they were duped so the desire to imagine even a slight improvement is overwhelming.
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