Synergistic Red Fuse ...

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, 

Let’s declare this thread a Mexican standoff. Both sides are repeating the same arguments as infinitum. I hate to judge before all the facts are in but this whole thing, with the fuses, with directionality, with the Graphene, with demand for explanations, while not completely without merit, appears to be at impasse most probably resulting from the Backfire Effect. Besides I thought the whole world loves a mystery. There is no real reason even it were an intellectual pursuit which I’m not actually convinced it is why all these various questions have to have answers. Mysteries are cool. No one even understands how electricity works so I don’t really see the big deal.

THE BACKFIRE EFFECT

“”What should be evident from the studies on the backfire effect is you can never win an argument online. When you start to pull out facts and figures, hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel as though they are even more sure of their position than before you started the debate. As they match your fervor, the same thing happens in your skull. The backfire effect pushes both of you deeper into your original beliefs.

—You Are Not So Smart - The Backfire Effect[1]

The backfire effect occurs when, in the face of contradictory evidence, established beliefs do not change but actually get stronger. The effect has been demonstrated experimentally in psychological tests, where subjects are given data that either reinforces or goes against their existing biases - and in most cases people can be shown to increase their confidence in their prior position regardless of the evidence they were faced with.

Davidpritchard - Thanks.  I am back towards the greed side of the fear-greed continuum.  I will do a little more research, but right now, I am leaning towards the SR black fuse, if they offer the value I need.  In for a penny, in for a pound!

Skeptics need to use their ears and quit thinking so much...

Turn on, tune in, and drop out, I say!

Something interesting that Caelin Gabriel of Shunyata Research commented on about audio that seems to sum it all up for me... (Read the last three paragraphs of his last comment at the end of the article/interview as I cannot reprint it). The whole piece is excellent, yet his last words ring so true to our pursuit and of our experience.

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/visits/shunyata_visit_interview.htm

I personally don't derive my pleasure from specs, logic (per say), nor numbers. My joy in this hobby/pass-time comes via my ears and I believe the critic who doesn't use his ears is wasting a grand opportunity for true pleasure.