Fuses that matter.


I have tried six different fuses, including some that were claimed to not be directional. I have long used the IsoClean fuses as the best I have heard. No longer! I just got two 10 amp slow-blows WiFi Tuning Supreme fuses that really cost too much but do make a major difference in my sound. I still don't understand how a fuse or its direction can alter sound reproduction for the better, but they do and the Supreme is indeed! I hear more detail in the recordings giving me a more holographic image. I also hear more of the top and bottom ends. If only you could buy them for a couple of bucks each.
tbg
Bryon, more grist for the mill is the recent review last year of the Supreme3 fuses from Hi Fi Tuning in Positive Feedback by Greg Weaver (a very experienced reviewer). Please note the use of the word, transparency. Coincidence? Not to mention the word, astonishing.

"After a brief bout of quite to install all eight fuses, I re-fired all my components to let everything have some time to "run in." Over the next three to three and a half weeks, I heard some exemplary, if subtle, improvements.

While I had expected some slight advances here or there, in a few specific categories, I was treated to small but encompassing, readily distinguishable, sonic improvements to virtually every attribute of my rig. The overall improvement wrought by their insertion was simply astonishing.

What stood out from the first was the notable enhancement in overall timbre, especially through the lower to mid bass, and the upper midrange through lower treble regions. Bass runs, from the thundering electric bass licks of the "Ox" Entwistle, to the engaging and often nuanced cello efforts of Janos Starker, were weightier, "woodier" sounding, and more tonally balanced. Strings, horns, and cymbals further shed most remnants of that "white-ish" sonic tinge and were rendered in a more fluid and coherent manner.

Transparency enjoyed a wholesale improvement; slight, granted, but bettered without question. This comes in two forms as I heard it. First, through the reduction of a miniscule yet inclusive fine graining, offering a more liquid texture overall, and secondly, by contributing to a slight reduction of the noise floor.

Spatial recreation enjoys special attention. Dimensionality takes on a slightly more focused nature, and at the same time, instrumental lines are recreated with better delineation and seemingly more accurate and appropriate size.

Both microdynamic events and microdynamic shadings are more readily revealed, unleashing enhanced detail and offering enhanced perception of physical and emotional involvement."
Well said,,,Greoffkait,,, my experience with the Supremes are the same. I've tried different fuses before with little or no change, but for once the Supremes made an unquestionable improvement.
I wonder if the nay sayers here have even given them a try, or is it the old, I know it all so I'll just bury my head it the sand attitude.
Tmsorosk, the naysayers are irrelevant. They mainly don't want to try this tweak or they claim they hear nothing. That is their problem. Obviously, I entirely share your experiences. For the last five or six years, I have been concerned with fuse direction and later with the fuse manufacturer. I have had some devices where the fuse direction didn't seem to matter much are where there were multiple fuses or I could not be certain that I had exhausted all the many combinations of direction among them. Similarly, I have experienced special fuses that did little or that actually harmed the sound. I have even tried magnets in place of the fuses, but thought there was no real benefit and certainly hesitated to have no protection.

You either try things or not. If one choses to not try changes, it bothers me little.
Blew some fuses recently so for fun installed hifi tuning supreme.

Maybe it's just my imagination, or could be related to a relatively new digital cable burning in, here's what I notice:

-- more relaxed, liquid, musical
-- more "space" around instruments, more specific placement, less congestion
-- greater soundstage depth/layering

Placebo maybe, who knows. Not sure I care.
Ok, Geoff. That was a good response. Neither polemical nor irrelevant. And I do value the reports of other, especially when they coincide. So you give me very little to argue with at the moment. I have confidence you will rectify that situation.

05-26-12: Tmsorosk
I wonder if the nay sayers here have even given them a try, or is it the old, I know it all so I'll just bury my head it the sand attitude.

05-26-12: Tbg
Tmsorosk, the naysayers are irrelevant. They mainly don't want to try this tweak or they claim they hear nothing. That is their problem.
Gentlemen - The skepticism I expressed over the gushing quote from Stereo Times may make me sound like a 'naysayer,' but it doesn't make me one of the people who "don't want to try this tweak."

At this point, I've bought FIVE fancy fuses and conducted A/B tests that, while not scientific, are nonetheless careful and sincere. The conclusions of my tests make me a tentative Believer, not a Naysayer. Admittedly, I'm not a Gusher. But that is a far cry from "burying my head in the sand."

Bryon