auxinput - thanks, in return, for your post. I like the exchange of ideas. It is so much more pleasant to discuss and agree - or disagree - politely, than some of the name calling that happens in so many other forums (and it seems, even in this one sometimes. On Facebook, there is a group for audiophiles on the cheap, and I volunteered that a record clamp would help keep the cartridge from doing the rhumba on records by...well, clamping them down securely. And got a snotty response simply because I’d worked - and written for - several magazines). It is much more civil here, even when the inevitable malcontent announces that a fuse or speaker or Shakti Stone "can’t POSSIBLY do THAT!"
Quite by accident, I discovered, a week ago, hiding in plain sight - in the Bermuda Triangle that is my listening room - a Furutech fuse, and looked at it the way a society doyenne assesses a social climber: "Hmmm...what use could I make of you?" Unfortunately, the Furutech once again went on the lam into the Bermuda Triangle of my room, although I’ve no doubt I can find it more easily, now that I know I didn't throw them out! (I almost never do, but am non-plussed at how hard it is to find them when I want them again. I'd swear I put them somewhere "safe," but if they were children, I'd be arrested for losing them. And Jailed. For Decades, even. So, thank God that the little fuses cannot get me incarcerated.
On another thread I posted on tonight, Synergistic Research had announced the released of a new line of fuses, the "BLUE," which, they assert, will leave the Black in the dust, but, we’re assured, the Black is as good as it ever was. And I believe that. However, since Synergistic always offers a 30-day return guarantee, I could not resist being Blue for a while, and have ordered 3 of the Blues, which I will put into my NAD C3325BEE. The NAD seems to resist fuses’ effects - positively, I mean. The Furutechs positively bleached out the lovely tone that the NAD has (and it truly - for an inexpensive integrated - has a lovely tonal quality. That designer knew what he was doing!) So, now I am going to see if an upgrade - that costs as much as the NAD did when new - can entice it into another level of performance. It has always lacked resolution in the highs and is only fair-good with ambience retrieval, so it is a good candidate for home...I mean, audio, improvement. We shall see!
I enjoy these exchanges. Thank you. And I’m sorry that I forgot to acknowledge where you pointed out that you were speculating. I am not an engineer. It is a wonder I haven’t electrocuted myself, changing outlets by myself and occasionally soldering circuits. I trust your superior knowledge. I can only tell by ear (which I DO trust), how close the music comes to how realistic it sounds in my favorite venues: Carnegie Hall, The Met, and David Geffen (formerly Avery Fisher) as well as the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford, CT and the Palace in Stamford, CT. And, of course, Boston Symphony Hall, which I haven’t been in in years. Would that components were as easy to pin down as the character of symphony halls!
