Synergistic Red Fuse ...

Now for some good info for Mapman. Several days ago I did a Google search for Graphene. I now subscribe to Graphene-Info.com and get frequent E-mails about the latest in the world of Graphene. I think the time was well spent. Graphene's electron density is explained at multiple sites.

Samsung has allocated One Billion Dollars this year to Graphene research and product development. The University Of Manchester- England (where Graphene was isolated) has sixty million invested this year in Graphene research.

I have rather meticulously compared stock fuses to Isotech, Furutech, Synergistic Research-20, Synergistic Research RED, and Synergistic Black fuses in both directions.

I found the sonic changes in rank from best to least to be:
Synergistic Research Black-Best in all ways, Synergistic Red significant improvement, Synergistic -20 some improvement, Isoclean and Furutech mild improvement with careful listening, and in last place stock fuses.

To those who would rather know why one fuse sounds better than another and yet not want to hear the difference so be it. 

To those who are interested in improving the sound of their systems, I hope you will suspend any fears , or prejudices and try the Synergistic Research Black fuses.

David Pritchard

Night of the Living English Majors 

I don't know anything about electronics, but I feel like my rather simple question above was not addressed, except partially by Al.  It is how can a fuse that voltage passes through, but not signal, impact or rather improve the sound of a system, unless it is acting as a filter and in some way removing impurities from the current?  Not unlike a power conditioner?

Really just wondering.  Also, Maplegrovemusic +1

I have absolutely no idea how audiophile fuses "work," but long personal experience with them tells me emphatically that they do. With one recent exception, I have not blown a fuse in a piece of audio equipment in over forty years, which takes us to the bad old days of amplifier output fuses when, back in my high school and college days, we most often "repaired" the fuse with a bit of aluminum foil just to keep the party going.

Since then, I have never had a piece if audio gear fail due to a faulty fuse. I have never had catastrophic damage from lightning either, but I use Shunyata Venom Defenders to minimize that possibility, though living in the SF Bay Area, an earthquake is more likely to take me out than a lightning strike. The last and only fuse that failed on me was a Synergistic Research Red Fuse of factory rating installed in a well designed music server at start-up. An uprated replacement served me well until I upgraded it to an SR Black Fuse of the same uprated value a few weeks back. And yes, the Black sounded much better than the Red.

All of us are different in myriad ways, having, for example, different risk profiles and degree of need for objective certainty versus, perhaps, trust in subjective experience. For product liability reasons, I would never expect a manufacturer to approve my use of non-UL rated audiophile fuses so I have never asked. I accept the slight risk that some tweak I might employ in my continual quest to get just a little bit closer to the original performance encoded in my beloved recordings might lead to component damage. Having said that, I do have my limits: I'm not likely to buy a rechargeable hover-board any time soon either.

Hello andynotadam, 
Your comments are logical and well stated. This thread is approaching 4 months and 900 postings with the experience of the "actual listeners" profoundly positive. As many have noted, it seems that the primary effect of the Black fuses is a lowering of the noise floor. I would agree with that impression. Why? With a lower noise floor there's increased nuance retrieval, dynamic contrast, inner detail and improved delineation of instrument textures and tone. The sense of venue environment is further revealed,  all of this equates to increased realism and inevitably more emotional involvement /connection with your music. It's remarkable that these Black fuses provide this level of sonic and musical improvement. 
Charles,