^^^ Yep, the SR fuse chips arrived in this afternoon's mail. I did an a/b comparison with one piece of gear at a time, starting with the preamp fuse. Here's the overall consensus:
I used Diana Krall's "Live in Paris" CD first. I know this CD very well, so any improvement would be noticeable right away. With the fuse chips installed in the preamp and amp ... and with stock fuses still in the CD player, I noticed an additional lowering of the noise floor over just the SR RED fuses without the chips. This allowed for additional inner detail and previously unheard things to come through the soundfield. For example, on the cut "Oh Canada," an audience member coughs four times. I never, in all the times playing this CD, ever heard those coughs. In addition, the sense of movement of the musicians came through including Krall's operation of the pedals of the piano. the piano creaks, thumps and other things besides music that pianos do. All subsequent CD's revealed new information too. Very nice.
Next, I replaced CD's with Vinyl and put an SR fuse chip on the phono stage fuse. First up ... Sammy Davis Jr. with Laurindo Almeda on guitar. WOW! The sense of Davis being in the room was amazing. His personality came through like never before ... the mouth sounds, chest, throat and breath being controlled by the singer was amazing. Almeda's guitar had new inner detail, so much so, that I could hear "around" the strings. Such realism in that dang guitar!
Then, I switched to female vocalists. Same here as on the Sammy Davis album. The personality of the singers came through with a new realism. Sue Raney with the Bob Florence trio is one of my reference LP's. Again, the best I've ever heard it sound ... and I've heard this album at least a hundred times.
There's more to the SR fuse chips that the fuses by themselves don't provide. Yes, there's a lower noise floor, but the realism of the system overall has really been enhanced by the fuse chips. For the money, it's definitely a worthwhile tweak.
Next ... two SR RED fuses for the CD player along with two more fuse chips. As good as CD's are sounding in the system so far, which is far better than I ever thought digital would sound, I predict a major improvement once the CD player is "fuse upgraded." Stay tuned ...
