On 5/20/16 slaw wrote: "Can any of you explain why an item such as a fuse has such an impact on sound?
The honest answer is that we do not have all the answers. There are probably several factor involved. We do know however that it does. And accepting this fact is the first step on the road to finding out why.
We do know that the best fuses can elevate the performance of a high definition system to startlingly higher levels of performance. The sonic benefits of the fuse are proportional to the quality of the system in which it is placed as well as the capacity of the audiophile to know what live music sounds like. A low quality system ( which in some cases includes expensive amplifiers and/or loudspeakers) may not have the resolution to reveal some of these changes. For example many systems cannot important changes to soundstage information like front to back depth and soundstage height. Also if the system lacks quietness, low level information will be lost.
It is no coincidence that the originator of his thread "Oregonpapa" has a very high performance system with reference quality products. Moreover he is a music lover with keen ears and a history of live performances. (I confess that I have never met or spoken to Oregonpapa . My description of his system and life experiences are gleaned from this thread) When confronted with the dramatic results brought about the Synergistic Research fuse he could not restrain himself. He had to tell his fellow audiophiles the good news. It is important to note that he was blown away by the incredible realism of the saxophone in one of his favorite albums. An audiophile whose system is inadequate, or who has no knowledge of the sound of acoustical instruments may not notice any significant changes when playing the same album.
When I said above that we do not know why a fuse can have a large effect on the fidelity of a system, I do not mean to imply that no has the answers.
The first thing to realize is that a fuse by itself cannot improve fidelity. However when placed in an amplifier, the amplifier can produce the changes we hear. When I first heard the synergistic fuse I immediately recognized the changes as amplifier sourced. The addition of the fuse was a modification to the amplifier in the same way that Modwright or other
individuals modify amplifiers. The fuse when placed in an amplifier behaves in accordance with established fundamental principles. The real challenge is find out which of these fundamental principles has the most dominant effects in this application.
I was faced with a similar quandary in 1980. I had a system close to reference quality, which I sought to improve. But how? Then I saw an article by Jung & Marsh in Audio magazine. At that time audio designers would calculate the capacitance value of a capacitor for a given amplifier circuit. However, when Jung and Marsh built these amplifiers using capacitors from various manufacturers, listening tests revealed that they all sounded differently. This was a shocking result. How can caps with the same values sound so differently? It turned out that none of the caps were behaving as a pure capacitor should. Although each had the same measured capacitor value they had significant resistance and inductive values not specified in the circuit diagrams. To complicate matters even further each cap used a different dielectric and there was a huge correlation between dielectric material and sound quality. I was able to acquire some high quality caps, built in response to the audio magazine article and as I changed each cap I heard a massive improvement in sound quality.
My guess is that vibrational energy caused by current flowing through the fuse will be identified as a major factor in fuse performance. But this is a topic for another time.
The honest answer is that we do not have all the answers. There are probably several factor involved. We do know however that it does. And accepting this fact is the first step on the road to finding out why.
We do know that the best fuses can elevate the performance of a high definition system to startlingly higher levels of performance. The sonic benefits of the fuse are proportional to the quality of the system in which it is placed as well as the capacity of the audiophile to know what live music sounds like. A low quality system ( which in some cases includes expensive amplifiers and/or loudspeakers) may not have the resolution to reveal some of these changes. For example many systems cannot important changes to soundstage information like front to back depth and soundstage height. Also if the system lacks quietness, low level information will be lost.
It is no coincidence that the originator of his thread "Oregonpapa" has a very high performance system with reference quality products. Moreover he is a music lover with keen ears and a history of live performances. (I confess that I have never met or spoken to Oregonpapa . My description of his system and life experiences are gleaned from this thread) When confronted with the dramatic results brought about the Synergistic Research fuse he could not restrain himself. He had to tell his fellow audiophiles the good news. It is important to note that he was blown away by the incredible realism of the saxophone in one of his favorite albums. An audiophile whose system is inadequate, or who has no knowledge of the sound of acoustical instruments may not notice any significant changes when playing the same album.
When I said above that we do not know why a fuse can have a large effect on the fidelity of a system, I do not mean to imply that no has the answers.
The first thing to realize is that a fuse by itself cannot improve fidelity. However when placed in an amplifier, the amplifier can produce the changes we hear. When I first heard the synergistic fuse I immediately recognized the changes as amplifier sourced. The addition of the fuse was a modification to the amplifier in the same way that Modwright or other
individuals modify amplifiers. The fuse when placed in an amplifier behaves in accordance with established fundamental principles. The real challenge is find out which of these fundamental principles has the most dominant effects in this application.
I was faced with a similar quandary in 1980. I had a system close to reference quality, which I sought to improve. But how? Then I saw an article by Jung & Marsh in Audio magazine. At that time audio designers would calculate the capacitance value of a capacitor for a given amplifier circuit. However, when Jung and Marsh built these amplifiers using capacitors from various manufacturers, listening tests revealed that they all sounded differently. This was a shocking result. How can caps with the same values sound so differently? It turned out that none of the caps were behaving as a pure capacitor should. Although each had the same measured capacitor value they had significant resistance and inductive values not specified in the circuit diagrams. To complicate matters even further each cap used a different dielectric and there was a huge correlation between dielectric material and sound quality. I was able to acquire some high quality caps, built in response to the audio magazine article and as I changed each cap I heard a massive improvement in sound quality.
My guess is that vibrational energy caused by current flowing through the fuse will be identified as a major factor in fuse performance. But this is a topic for another time.