Synergistic Red Fuse ...

Oregonpapa wrote,

"1. Green paint for CD's. Black paint for CD's.
2. Tice Clock.
3. Don't recall the name, but a black box with a power cord attached that when plugged into any outlet was supposed to lower the noise floor. It did absolutely nothing.
4. After market turntable mat that did nothing except slow the speed of the turntable motor.
5. CD mat ... no change.
6. After market jumper cables for the speakers that actually degraded the sound.

Couple things.  The green pen is a little trickier than folks realize.  The green should only be used on the outer edge and black should only be used on the inner edge.  Black should never be used on the outer edge or on the label.  Mess you up. The black box sounds like the quantum corp. Symphony Or Symphony Pro or the one that preceded them, all of which I had good luck with.  Knock on wood.  The Mpingo disc, very tricky to find the place where it actually makes a big difference but it's there.  When I first heard what the Mpingo disc can do I almost evacuated a brick.  I showed Pierre at Maplshade the Mpingo discs back in 1997 at the show and he insisted on using it on the floor right in front of the system. 

Geoff Kait
machina dynamica

Earlier in this thread there was discussion of audio  equipment designers and builders regarding the use of premium fuses in their products. Of course the verdict is mixed among them.  There's a review of the highly praised French made TotalDACd1-6   on the 6 Moons review site. The Manufacturer offers the SR Quantum 20 fuses as an  upgrade in his DAC.  He believes that it is a clear improvement of the stock fuse. I don't know if he's aware of the Black fuse or not.   So some builders believe in these fuses and some don't. This review also offers interesting discussion/comparison  of the R2R ladder vs Delta Sigma topologies. 
Charles, 

oregonpapa, I enjoy hearing you have had and liked the Atma-Sphere gear. Like with any other amp but, perhaps OTL's especially, having a good (impedance match and) power match is vital. Yeah, for me, the transparency and tonal quality they bring, especially in the midrange is addictive. The speed at which they work is also quite remarkable.

I may just stay right where I'm at for a long, long time yet...

I don't know how this fits in other than to say that soon after I got my Marantz Reference components (after break in), I swapped out the stock fuses for HiFi Tuning fuses and after break in, the sound did improve. It was not on the level of going to Darwin ICs or Zu Audio SCs but there did seem to be a more resolving nature but as I said, not on the level of the cable swaps. 

It got me closer to a cleaner event and in the end, it's all I ask for in this hobby. I don't want anything that leads to a sideways change, just a cleaner and clearer one. 

Everything is system dependent as I had to remove some Herbies footers from under my speakers for a tighter and more focused sound, return a SteinMusic speaker match for doing really nothing, remove some Mad Scientist black discs from my amp's speaker output posts for the same reason, and a few others that don't come readily to mind. 

Heck, even power cords made a bigger difference than the fuses. I know I"m limiting myself to what I've experienced but I'm really quite satisfied with what progress I've made and don't begrudge anyone who claims to have better results. Hats off to anyone who's happy and it'd be nice to see less of a polarized nature to all of this.

All the best,
Nonoise

Whitesox wrote,

"I guess from the number of folks on this thread who find the fuses, etc. improving their system, I think that is just great. They don’t cost much and if they, like speaker cable elevators, do something to improve the sound of their system, then what the hell, go for it. I do advice you to turn in your "BS filter" to what is being said in an advocacy of these tweaks and understand that folks like GK, who chimes in on this post with baffling assertions coming from the realm of pseudo-electronics, have economic skin in the game to entice you to try the expensive stuff they peddle."

Uh, oh, I’m getting a bad feeling.

geoff kait
machina dynamica
advanced audio conceits