Synergistic Red Fuse ...

David ... ^^^

Nice! I wish I could have been there with you.  I  have a similar experience from time to time.

A local church has a quarterly event featuring our town's symphony orchestra playing concertos with our very best youth musicians. These kids range in age from 12 to 17. They are amazing. My friend and fellow audiophile/record collector, Robert and I, attend these events together. We always sit in the front row right between the piano and string section. Oh, those massed strings!!  And the weight of the piano!!

In several postings in this thread I've alluded to how "relaxed" the system has become due to the SR Black fuses ... much like live music. Well ... its this live orchestra experience that I'm talking about. While everything is more detailed, it is so in a very palatable, organic way. There is no longer a "cringe factor," so to speak.  

On the youth musicians ... Can you imagine a 12-year-old kid who cannot reach the petals on the piano playing Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" so well that your friend leans over to you as says: "I'm going to throw every recording I have of this work away. I've just heard the ultimate version!" Twelve years old ... and a total knock out performance.  

Life is good, David.   :-)

Well, I now have about 208 hours of continuous current on the SR Black fuses that went into my Aesthetix preamp and phonostage and I could not be happier with the poltry investment of these fine upgrade fuses.  At this point I'm just playing music, and enjoying it immensely. The depth and contrast these babies reveal is simply shocking. They seem to make my sound much more relaxed and effortless, and yet at the same time more textural and dynamic, if that could possibly be. I have also thrown in a Coincident extreme cable upgrade in between my monitor units and the amps with added success. Combined, they have really made vocals improve their convincingly "humanness" flesh out in a performance. I just so impressed and satisfied by the results.  Having tried the stock fuses back in the gear to contrast just how much the SR Blacks have made a difference and it was embarrassing, and no contest.

How these things make the difference they do is a mystery to me. But I have to say that it does seem likely that a .75 to 1.25 inch hair thickness wire in the mains could well become a choke point to any highly resolving system.  Well, more fuses on the way... What can I say?!

So i take my hat off to Synergistic Research for their obvious engineering accomplishments in this fuzzy area of our hobby. And thank you oregonpappa for bringing this remarkable, cheap tweak to all of our attention. A thank you also goes out to Charles and David and the rest of the posters who's long time experience and reliable opinions (and ears!) helped lead the way for the rest of us. Thank you gentlemen. This is a heck of a lot of fun and with great sonic rewards. 

Happy Listening!

Has anyone tried a SR Red Fuse in a Audio Research Reference 10?

^^^

r_f_sayles ...

Nice post.  What's so astounding is how much stock fuses degrade the sound of our equipment. SR has hit on something big with these fuses. Your above post just about says it all.

On the vocals ... I listened to a recording of the Norman Luboff choir's "But Beautiful" last night with the Black fuse in the phono amp. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Record-LP-But-Beautiful-the-Norman-Luboff-choir-/262188669278?hash=item3d0ba...

This is one of my reference records. Its lushness just comes over you in waves. There is a female soloist just to the left and behind the right speaker. As improvements have been made to the system, her voice has incrementally become more and more distinct. Well, last  night she became a featured performer for the very first time. With the placement of the SR Black fuse in the phono amp, I have a brand new record collection. Just uncanny. 

rspyder ...

I've heard the REF-10 on numerous occasions. A fabulous line stage to be sure. 

I have a SR Red fuse in my REF 75 SE. soon to be replaced with a SR Black fuse. 

What I thought to be a grain free amp was brought to a whole new level with the Red fuse. As I said in an earlier post, if you have a REF-75, you haven't heard what the amp is capable of until you change out the fuse for the SR fuse. But why stop with the Red fuse when the Black fuse would take you to a whole different level? 

I don't see why the REF-10 would be any different than the REF-75. The results should be the same if not even better. I suspect that the more revealing your equipment is in the first place, the better the results will be. And ... as you know very well, the REF-10 is REVEALING in a big way. Fantastic piece of gear. 

Take advantage of the 30 day trial period and give it a go. But please report the results here. I'll bet it'll be really, really great. 

The ARC REF 10 is a very expensive high level Line Stage, just go directly to the Black fuse,  no point stopping off at the Red fuse. The Red is "very good ", the Black is in comparison "superb". As Frank, David and I have written previously,  the better resolved the components /system  the greater the impact of the Black fuses. 

Sayles,
You summed up very wel the SR Black effect , a bottleneck is replaced with an open, fully breathing sound. I am happy for you very successful results. 
Charles,