The Black fuse for my REL arrived a day early! Gotta love highend-electronics teamed with the good ol' post office. I installed it into my R-328 and noted the crossover level (30Hz) and level (about 9:30), levels which have remained stable over a number of system changes (excluding speakers of course).
Honestly, the first thing I noticed after the change was that the sound stage was better organized, more articulate and seemed to have a greater degree of dimensionality (properly set up RELs can do this, and the Black fuse enhanced this effect in my system). This was obvious right away on the first cut from Patricia Barber's "Companion," an album, with which I am very familiar. The first cut, "The Beat Goes On" has congas and syncopated hand-claps for percussion. Michael Arnopol's bass on "Use Me" digs deep but also has a great deal of texture and overtone structure, and this was further enhanced with the Black over the stock fuse. Bass weight and control were clearly improved.
My system is a 2 channel setup is for both music and video. What was kind shocking was that the sound of TV show themes and familiar commercials took on a noticeably different and improved character. They have more and better bass and the noise floor seems to have dropped, revealing greater detail! I noticed the same thing when I upgraded my DAC. How crazy is that? (And some of you will no doubt say, seriously dude you are very crazy.)
BTW, my REL is fed by a Synergistic AC Master-Coupler Subwoofer Active AC cord and the high-level Speakon cable is a Kimber CU.
Honestly, the first thing I noticed after the change was that the sound stage was better organized, more articulate and seemed to have a greater degree of dimensionality (properly set up RELs can do this, and the Black fuse enhanced this effect in my system). This was obvious right away on the first cut from Patricia Barber's "Companion," an album, with which I am very familiar. The first cut, "The Beat Goes On" has congas and syncopated hand-claps for percussion. Michael Arnopol's bass on "Use Me" digs deep but also has a great deal of texture and overtone structure, and this was further enhanced with the Black over the stock fuse. Bass weight and control were clearly improved.
My system is a 2 channel setup is for both music and video. What was kind shocking was that the sound of TV show themes and familiar commercials took on a noticeably different and improved character. They have more and better bass and the noise floor seems to have dropped, revealing greater detail! I noticed the same thing when I upgraded my DAC. How crazy is that? (And some of you will no doubt say, seriously dude you are very crazy.)
BTW, my REL is fed by a Synergistic AC Master-Coupler Subwoofer Active AC cord and the high-level Speakon cable is a Kimber CU.