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
 
rilbr
I tried an SR Black fuse in place of a relatively new fuse ( about 30 hours on the stock fuse).

The SR Black sounded a little better. So to me it's not because the stock fuse was degraded over years of use.

Still, I think they are way overpriced, especially if they can be mass produced with the graphine, beeswax or nano particles. I have little desire to buy more of them.

....................

Mass produced? Shirley, you jest. Just curious, was your relatively new stock fuse insert in the right direction? Was the SR Black inserted in the right direction?

Teo_audio wrote,

"Importantly, engineering is not science. Science has only theories. Engineering has laws. Engineering is about building, so it has rules, so you don’t experiment with devices and constructions being built for the human world.

Science is about exploration and that is wholly error prone. Since it is error prone, it cannot ever suffer a law, as laws will make it circular and closed off, with no expandable future. When we get to the real exploration in science, we find there is not anything like a fact, either.

The bleeding edge of science, has, for as long as anyone can remember in this idea of organizing research and giving it a language in commonality...ie science...this science has not not one single fact. Zero.

The only ’fact’ in existence in science...is that there are no facts. A paradox. The core philosophical argument of science, right at the core of it... is the same paradox as quantum science --the wave-particle duality. Everything is theory that is subject to change."

..........

Whoa! Hey! There are no facts? There are no laws? It’s a little difficult to swallow all those statements in light of Newton’s Laws of motion, the Laws of Thermodynamics, even the simple little old equation E=mc2. The speed of light is constant in a vacuum. That is not a theory. It is not subject to change. There is a giant black hole in the center of our galaxy. That is 99.99% pure fact. Furthermore, wave particle duality is a specific idea and is not applicable to everything in science. Not everything in science is a mystery, a paradox or a theory. 


From our old friend, Wikipedia,

"The laws of science, scientific laws, or scientific principles are statements that describe or predict a range of phenomena behave as they appear to in nature.[1] The term "law" has diverse usage in many cases: approximate, accurate, broad or narrow theories, in all natural scientific disciplines (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy etc.). Scientific laws summarize and explain a large collection of facts determined by experiment, and are tested based on their ability to predict the results of future experiments. They are developed either from facts or through mathematics, and are strongly supported by empirical evidence. It is generally understood that they reflect causal relationships fundamental to reality, and are discovered rather than invented.[2]

Laws reflect scientific knowledge that experiments have repeatedly verified (and never falsified). Their accuracy does not change when new theories are worked out, but rather the scope of application, since the equation (if any) representing the law does not change. As with other scientific knowledge, they do not have absolute certainty (as mathematical theorems or identities do), and it is always possible for a law to be overturned by future observations. A law can usually be formulated as one or several statements or equations, so that it can be used to predict the outcome of an experiment, given the circumstances of the processes taking place.

Laws differ from hypotheses and postulates, which are proposed during the scientific process before and during validation by experiment and observation. These are not laws since they have not been verified to the same degree and may not be sufficiently general, although they may lead to the formulation of laws. A law is a more solidified and formal statement, distilled from repeated experiment. Laws are narrower in scope than scientific theories, which may contain one or several laws.[3] Unlike hypotheses, theories and laws may be simply referred to as scientific fact.[4] Although the nature of a scientific law is a question in philosophy and although scientific laws describe nature mathematically, scientific laws are practical conclusions reached by the scientific method; they are intended to be neither laden with ontological commitments nor statements of logical absolutes."

To put it more succinctly - it is what it is.

Ok, Geoff, in once sentence, then:

For engineers and the average dude, they are laws; for scientists and explorers of such nature, they are theories.


Simple enough, but few folks recognize that --or in their daily lives are even required to do so.

Thus it can build into a problem of projection of ’high predictability in the given theories’ becoming a dogmatic rule enforcement (human clan nature) that curtails potentials and turns exploration into a circular argument that self limits.

This situation arose when the German teaching methodology (1700’s-1800’s) which was so effective in creating functional engineers, became the gold standard in teaching. To get more people doing good engineering work.

After all, one cannot teach that at the core of each ’law’ is actually a box of squirming worms that USUALLY (ridiculously high odds) swim in a known direction, but that the box of squirming worms MIGHT be a problem.

Nothing would ever get built. And if it was built, it might be dangerous,or dubious in use or human mental reach. And so on. Eg, anyone can walk across a bridge, few can build one.


For the questioners, those reaching for the limits and then looking for the new....to teach them that each law is actually a box of squirming worms that MIGHT have different results, but it is very unlikely that it will happen. To remain suspicious of all facts, in the face of observations that do not fit the laws or facts. To investigate and try and fit, but to not fudge, to not fake, to not force or silence contrary data. To leave room for the new, so it can change the old. Otherwise, we’re all dead with no future.

However, with those who were taught scientific laws (and probably they went in that direction due to their mental orientation -or were never aware of this issue) the new thing or data that does not fit MUST be force fit or killed as it cannot be anything but lies, charlatans, freaks and asshats with agendas and ulterior motives.

Humanity is largely dogmatic due to the need for social and cultural systems to be functional. So unconscious projection of norms is a fact of human life as human groupings go.

Thus the school of engineering fact and law enforcement and then the explorer scientific methodology of ’no such thing as facts or scientific laws’.


Most important take away:

you can build things with scientific laws and facts, but you can’t explore the given difficult new thing with scientific laws or facts being in control of the outcome.

Doing so would just be the church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or imperial edict ---- with another face.

Exploratory science recognizes this. Engineers and the general public are, for the vast part... not even taught or shown that this critical point even exists.

So we get this violence on forums, in the face of the new or the not yet understood.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Something I seemed to have forgotten since the Stereophile forum days, that I’m now being reminded of. That you are a twisty cat, who... well..who knows what.
also, it took me time to build that post, so your prior one which expanded the one just above, seems like it was trashing my earlier points, when the follow up one did steer to a better more involved clarification. My remark was tied to the earlier post. All due to post creation and posting times rearing their head. The twisty bit is about intelligence and complexity, not meant as derogatory.

You mentioned a meme that can come into being, mainly "It’s the photons, stupid."

I mentioned the fluid has these properties when one considers the absorption and reflection of photons. Which may be a clue, or data point... as to what is going on with it. Properties in the area involving photons, that are considerably different than that of wire.

Anyway, this is about fuses and science and hearing, in an area involving emotions and drives. Music.

Depending on the design of the given piece of gear, the fuse in use can make a subtle to gross difference, and specifically in ways that are important to human hearing function, involving capacity to discern.

This happens in a given system whether it is a cheap fuse, an old fuse, a new fuse, or an audiophile tuned fuse, or given different designs utilizing various fuse materials.

We hear this, or we don’t. The rest is an argumentative atmosphere of discussion... unless one chooses to not participate.


An important point is that fuses are a scientifically and in engineering terms and circles...known creation points for non-linear odd harmonic distortions of the given pass-through signal.

As a culmination and cumulative effect, this affects the outcome when dealing with highly dynamic complex music signals.

And our highly evolved but individual intelligence capacity (not all the same!!!!) hearing (one's hear-q) will either hear it or not ...and like it or not.

Depending on on the given item in situ, using the given fuse, you will hear this to a greater or lesser degree. To some the given distortion creation or taming enabled by the use of the given fuse.... will either be pleasant or not really a big deal.

Simple enough.