Synergistic Red Fuse ...

Mapman ...

Its a mystery to me as to why the fuses were so significant of an improvement in my system while no improvement was detected in your's and a few others. The only thing I can come up with is that I've spent an inordinate amount of time, effort, and money over many years to reduce micro vibrations throughout the system and in the listening room.

Everything I could think of in the area of vibration control has, or had been addressed. Even after all of these years and effort, I'm still finding areas of improvement as new products are developed. The latest being the SR High Frequency Transducers (HFT's). These things are NOT subtle at all. Amazing, really.

I've paid attention to large and minor details as far as micro vibrations are concerned from the turntable all the way back to the back wall of the room.

My equipment stand is made of three layers of plywood with constrained dampening material between each layer. The stand is spiked to the floor. The equipment rests on granite platforms. each layer is machined to close tolerances with more dampening material sandwiched between the layers. The ARC equipment is built with dampening material inside the chassis and the tubes are dampened with tube rings. Even the placement of the tube rings has been done to ear. We have Warren Gehl at ARC to thank for that. He's an engineer with a specialty in vibration control. I've learned tons about this stuff from Warren over the years. Over time, Warren has developed a turntable mat, a CD mat and even a tonearm wrap that works quite well. He's responsible for the design of the granite platforms that my electronics rest on and that are on top of my speakers. 

So, here's the bottom line. I think that because such attention has been applied to the fine details, any improvement (or detriment) can be heard immediately ... and they can be profound. 

You asked me to compare the speaker platforms to the fuses. The Mapleshade platforms were a major step from top to bottom. As the bass was cleaned up, it affected the mid-range and the highs significantly as well. Everything was more focused in a big way. I finally had a bass that was clearly defined. 

With the fuses (and keep in mind here, there is a huge difference between the SR Red fuses like you tried and the Black fuses), right off the bat, from the first RED fuse, it was like going from a standard tube TV set with white noise that you didn't know was there, and then converting over to a new LCD TV.  The clarity, depth and width of the sound field were improved dramatically. The most striking improvement from the fuses, especially the Black fuses, was the improved organic nature of the sound of instruments. Much more realistic and emotionally involving. Its what compelled me to start this entire thread in the first place. 

So, I would encourage anyone reading this who is seriously into great sound and music to seek out ways to get everything in the system under control from a vibration standpoint. Consider the room itself to be part of the system and control that too. It can be something really inexpensive like tube dampening rings, cable elevators for your speaker cables, or expensive as well, like Shakti Hallographs in all four corners of the room. Everything makes a difference for better or for worse. Find the better and chuck the worse. :-)

 http://shakti-innovations.com/hallograph.htm

So, what do you think, mapman?  I have no way of knowing what you've done in the way of fine details as described above. I'd be really interested in your assessment. 

Thanks ...

OP

OP,

For comparison, my main gear is in my office on foundation level, concrete floor with thin dense carpet and padding. A most solid foundation to start with. Bel Canto ref1000m amps are on an antique wood stand with soft padded top. SB touch on top. ARC Pre-amp, mhdt DAC and Linn turntable sit on a solid maple antique coffee table less than 2’ tall. It is quite heavy and rock solid. All gear is along left side wall. Isolation is quite good by design, by far the best I have ever had at home. How do I know? Its a small room with speakers facing gear and there is no noticeable feedback or noise with turntable playing even at top volume, which is never easy to accomplish. A solid foundation like the foundation level of a structure offers is the ideal location to start and makes all else easier.

Detail, imaging, soundstage, dynamics are all top notch I would say, in line with the best systems I hear out there after a lot of attention in recent years.

My best speakers, teh large OHM F5s, are in an adjacent room connected via in-wall wires to gear in room next door so no interaction between those and the gear driving them.

Also when I had our house built, I had the walls surrounding my office where the gear resides fully insulated and a solid wood door put in. I can listen in there quite loud at night and bother no one.

So I think I am in pretty good shape isolation wise. I also have done things to minimize RF and EM interactions as well, mostly all very simple low cost tweaks like setting my phono step up transformer in a mu metal foil container and paying careful attention to positioning of wires relative to nearby power transformers.

To answer inquiring minds, I use Littlefuses. The send me 13 cents every time I mention that.

I have stacked 2 maple butcher blocks under my main Silverline Prelude speakers (just to raise 'em 5 inches) with vibrapods under the speakers where the spikes would have been…on a wood floor this effectively keeps the speaker box from vibing into the floor. A toe can verify this. It works swimmingly. Outboard regulated power supplies here and there to keep DC out of things, a PS Audio Humbuster III, Power Port AC plugs, heavy duty Sorbathane feet under the tube amp, large alloy cones of some type I've had for decades under the preamp (mostly for ventilation really). See? I can tweak…but the zillions of little surfaces all over my largish room made up of art works, books, piles of yet to be laundered cash, furniture, a piano, guitar cases, shrunken heads of my foes, etc., all reflect sound waves someplace, and if my doubting the effectiveness of a half dozen tiny alloy cups stuck here and there on all this seems luddite, so be it. My dearly departed friend and neighbor Lars Fridell let Sun Mook dudes put their ridiculous little ebony discs in his listening room…another expensive bit of audio tricksterism that yielded no benefit. Note also that if a manufacturer makes claims of million volt treatment or esoteric graphite somehow giving a FUSE (not in the signal chain, a tiny wire designed to melt, etc.) magic powers when applied to the electrons flowing through it, they should at least TRY to explain how they got to that conclusion. Just sayin'...

Interesting, Wolfie, that you should mention the late Lars Fredell ("The World's Greatest Audiophile"), as just the other day I happened to be reading his brilliantly written and informative review of a Tenor OTL amplifier.  Very sad that he passed away at only 58.

Unfortunately I never had the pleasure of meeting him, or of sharing a listening session with him or his close colleague "Sam Tellig" (formerly of Stereophile), even though I live in the same general neck of the woods as they did at the time.  In those days my work was sufficiently intrusive on my time that just being able to listen at home was a special occasion.  But eventually I got my priorities in order :-)

Best regards,
-- Al
 

mapman ...

Is there a way that you can move your equipment so that its all behind your speakers? You say your gear is facing the speakers. I don't think that's the best situation.  If the gear is facing the speakers, and the speakers are firing into the equipment (even from across the room), think of how this could be causing the equipment chassis, the amp stand and coffee table to vibrate (think micro level). I know you said there is "no noticeable feedback,"  but like I said in my last post ... think of an old tube TV set with white noise on the screen that you didn't know existed until you replaced it with the new LCD TV set. 

Take a look at my system page. Notice that there is a large glass coffee table right in front of the sweet spot listening chair. That table is about ten feet from my speakers.

 A few weeks ago, my friend Robert (Mr. Record) tried talking me into removing the heavy glass top and moving it out of the room. We finally did it. The thing is so heavy it took both of us to move it ... and it will never come back.

 Without the large glass top, I'm getting better bass than ever. Very natural, very defined and very deep. Its small things like this that make the differences. Funny how you don't know there's a problem until you remove it. 

I love free tweaks. On your ARC preamp: try moving the two tube rings as far up the tubes as possible without the top ring falling off. Be sure that they are still solidly on the tubes, but as far up as possible. Be sure that both rings are solidly touching each other all the way around. You should hear more overall clarity after you've done this little tweak.  

Have you tried removing some of the Mu Metal?  I've experimented with Mu Metal in the past, and I know it reduces noise, but it can also be over done and have the effect of dulling the sound. 

So, there's a couple of suggestions. May work and may not. If not, nothing lost ... not even return postage. :-)

OP