Synergistic Red Fuse ...

Ok initial listening session done.

I spent about an hour swapping fuses in the arc sp16 and comparing. Also changing fuse direction. I left the quantum sticker thingy off.

So look, the red fuse sounded good. So did the stock fuse that came in the arc sp16 new. If there was a difference it did not jump out at me. Both sounded similarly good with great dynamics big soundstage excellent detail and the whole nine yards. I cannot really attribute anything unique to the red fuse so far.

I listened to 3 very good quality recordings, all lossless flac files ripped to my music server using dbpoweramp: The Mariners Revenge Song by The Decemberists, The William Walton Crown Imperial Coronation March on Mercury Living Presence,. And The Grand Duel by Luis Bacalov from the Kill Bill Pt 1 soundtrack.

System used was Squeezebox Touch to mhdt Constantine DAC to ARC sp16 pre-amp to BelCanto Ref1000m amps to Dynaudio Contour 1.3 mkII speakers. IC from DAC to pre and pre to amp both DNM Reson. Audioquest CV-6 speaker cables to Dynaudios.

So even though I am not hearing a difference so far that's two scores now for Synergistic Research in any case  1) 500V rating would appear to denote an unusually rugged and durable product and 2) good customer service.

Its to be expected that some will hear differences and some not with many more esoteric products.  

So given all that I would say the Red fuses are a sound product possibly worth the investment for some but probably not all.   That's not so bad, is it?

Myself, I would probably only buy a fuse from an audio specialty company for a premium only if I hear a clear difference I like.  Otherwise,  were I to need a fuse, I would probably go with a quality product for much lower cost from a commercial electronics supply house,   just like I often end up going to products from companies that deal with pro audio rather than home/high end for effective tweaks at reasonable cost.

To circle back with listening impressions on the Blacks in my DAC/pre: I returned to stock fuses for a few days to re-set my ears and expectations, then last night re-installed the Blacks (in this case with the R side of the fuse meeting incoming current.)

Compared to stock, bass was indeed fuller. Tone density was thicker, but ultimately I do think it came at the cost of detail resolution. With stocks my soundstage was pristine and slightly concave, as in it invited me to listen in. With the Blacks, the stage was wider, and pushed in a convex fashion toward me. But there was less depth, and indeed though I felt closer in space to the instruments in the soundstage, I perceived a little less definition and detail.

I’ll flip direction once more before making a final judgment on these guys. And I’ll repeat that this is all in good fun, and I question none of the great results that so many people are hearing. Just callin’ ’em like I hear ’em.

OP,

Also I will comment that I think I heard similar aspects to the sound that you originally identified when you started the thread in that I was trying to listen for taht and other things as well. At times I thought it might be somewhat associated uniquely with the red fuse, other times not. At the end of my session I was not sure I could identify a consistent advantage for either fuse.. So the contest was a wash for me in the end.

When done, I left my original fuse in in that it came with the unit and I could not identify a reason to change. The ARC sp16 has easy rear panel access for changing fuses, which helped greatly. I probably changed fuses up to a dozen times for comparison while listening. Other units may involve more work, removing covers, panels etc. If that were the case, and I had actually purchased the red fuse rather than using a free loaner to eval, I think I would have been more inclined to just leave the red fuse in and move on.

One thing interesting to me at this point is I can’t say conclusively that both fuses sounded the same. I definitely think I heard different things at different times, not unlike what Cymbop indicated, sometimes with the same fuse, but the differences were subtle and could easily have just been due to what I was specifically listening for at any particular time. So I definitely did not hear anything that indicated to me that the two fuses always sounded exactly the same. The differences were just very subtle and hard to attribute alone to just one fuse or the other. Just enough to cast some doubt. I started a thread recently asking people to rate the magnitude of various tweaks they’ve tried. For me the magnitude of this one was very low compared to some others I have used for similar cost where the differences were apparent immediately and consistently from there..