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Synergistic Red Fuse ...

I installed a SR RED Quantum fuse in my ARC REF-3 preamp a few days ago, replacing an older high end fuse. Uhh ... for a hundred bucks, this little baby is well worth the cost. There was an immediate improvement upon installation, but now that its broken in (yes, no kidding), its quite remarkable. A tightening of the focus, a more solid image, and most important of all for my tastes, a deeper appreciation for the organic sound of the instruments. Damn! ... cellos sound great! Much improved attack on pianos. More humanistic on vocals. Bowed bass goes down forever. Next move? .... I'm doing the entire system with these fuses. One at a time though just to gauge the improvement in each piece of equipment. The REF-75se comes next. I'll report the results as the progression takes place. Stay tuned ...

Any comments from anyone else who has tried these fuses?
128x128oregonpapa
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,939 posts
 
Imagine, for a moment, some manufacturer going the resettable fuse route. They'd be a year ahead of the competition and have a better sounding product to boot (all things being equal). And, if smart, they'd never mention it and a year up on the competition could be extended. In the meantime, laurels will be laid and glowing reviews published, establishing a foothold, and all this on a building a better, and cheaper mousetrap. Or something like that. :-)

All the best,
Nonoise
nutella
223 posts
 
Bryston has no fuses, only a circuit breaker.  Probably from their pro audio lineage where who t f wants to deal with fuses on the gear when it pops, just reset the circuit breaker.  Kind of how houses are no longer built with fuse panels anymore.  
Except Bryston gets a ton of criticism because of how they used to sound and not how they sound now.  Probably more accurate than most products out there but that doesn't fit the audiophile nomenclature.

Fwiw, I own no Bryston gear and do own and can hear the difference between fuses in certain components.  
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
On my HT system I have an Marantz SR6004 which has two of these resettable fuses in it. The one on the standby transformer during a power blackout blew, instead of resetting.

It was a pig to replace as it’s down the bottom of the three stacked boards and I had to remove all the boards and that bottom board to solder in a new one. If it was just a fuse in a clamp holder I could have replaced it easy with long nose pliers without removing anything.

How a PTC resettable fuse works
http://www.fuzetec.com/upload/images/PTC%20Function_Work_Basic.PNG

Cheers George
tommylion
874 posts
 
I recently got a matched pair of Telefunken 12AX7s from from Andy Bowen at Vintage Tube Services. They replaced some Teslas’ (80’s or 90’s vintage) I had been running in my ASL Tulip 2A3 SET amp. The Teslas’ were supposedly made with Telefunken’s tooling, and I thought they sounded pretty good. The real deal Telefunkens blew them away. It’s hard to describe the difference; just more air, sense of space, transparency, detail, involvement & general musical goodness.

If you’d like to find out for yourself the difference really good NOS small signal tubes can make, give Andy a call. If you’ve priced NOS tubes elsewhere, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
That's quite interesting but did you mean to post that here? 
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