Just wanted to offer another endorsement of the blacks. I’ve had bad experiences with after market fuses in the past but I just installed a set of Blacks in my DCS Paganini stack (4 boxes) and in my ARC Ref 2SE Phono and 40th Anniversary Pre. Still early days on hours but my experience is a very consistent step up in line with all of the other power noise floor optimization moves I’ve been making (changing the MPCs on my SR power cords, most recently upgrading to a Transporter Ultra SE).
With every incremental step in cleaning I have noticed a similar change. At first it seems like a drop in perceived volume but as you listen in you realize the instruments are more whole and more distinct from one another as opposed to being "spotlit" previously. As an analogy imagine seeing a play in which the speaker is brightly lit by a spotlight, then when a new speaker comes in the spotlight shifts. You focus on the spotlit piece but have less of a sense of the whole. As you get the noise floor under control this spotlighting effect declines and you can hear the whole recording, and then "reach in" to pick out any instrument or voice you want. I find that after each change I find it beneficial to open up the volume control a bit more to levels that previously sounded loud and harsh. In fact it could be what we often perceive as loudness in audio reproduction is actually the cumulative noise in the system, as the noise is reduced we can open up the volume control and appreciate more of the dynamic range in the recording.
