Best fuses for under $50?

@gbmcleod 
Like @davidpritchard , thank you for your input into this unnecessarily contentious discussion on fuses. Your last paragraph pretty much sums it up re: we are the ones now tasked with getting our hands dirty in order to further gains and insights that others can use to further their enjoyment.

The boors should move on, unless there is some perverse enjoyment in their wailing and rending of cloth that can be had.

As for the use of rhodium in my PADIS fuses, I find them remarkably balanced and not at all lean in the midrange. Different systems will get different results.

All the best,
Nonoise

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!

Hi Aux. First of all, the Furutechs have plenty of time on them. I typically leave a component running for 3 weeks with signal going thru them. In other words, 500 hours...


Now, for the foot-in-mouth apology.
I came across the Furutech fuse (I had four, but packed up all but one and the others are in a drawer somewhere else) and decided, after staring at it harshly, but them remembering your convictions, thought, "It’s not very scientific to not test it out again. He might be right." - as well as that, add in the fact that I have refined my already (very) refined setup by adding the Townshend Audio Seismic Isolation Platform and the Townshend Isolation pods under the NAD. And separated the positive and negative leads of the Shunyata Cobra speaker cables from even touching even slightly at the NAD’s amp end. I have found even tiny differences like this - although one would think they shouldn’t matter - DO.

Whatever it was that did the trick, it happened AFTER the separation of the lead, and THEn the re-insertion of the Furutech into the lead position on the NAD. And then I replayed the entire "What’s New" album by Linda Ronstadt, which is a very well-recorded album, and one I’ve been listening two for the past two days. The difference in the delicacy of her voice (the pure emotional feeling) came across quite noticeably. The intake of breath demonstrates a continuity throughout all the cuts, not something that happens on one phrase, in one song, but not the next one. It is consistent from song to song. Yes, the soundstage is more transparent - and the ambience is, again, noticeably better, but I couldn’t have cared less about that: the vibrato in Ronstadt’s voice is considerably better, which makes the song more intensely "feeling" and captivating in the most musical sense. In other ones, without consciously trying to turn off the critical faculties and just let the emotions wash over you, it happens by itself, and the music takes you away. Also, the timing of her phrasing is simply lovely, where only hours before I put it (the Furutech) in the system, I enjoyed it, but not nearly to the same degree. It is clearly the insertion of the fuse: the harmonic overtones are beyond what would happen by separating the leads (something I’ve done before and besides, I played it after the separation and then put the fuse in, went off to my 50th class reunion and came back - 5 hours later) and played it. Not even close to the same sound. I listened directly after putting the Furutech in and was put off by a recession in Ronstadt’s vocals. When I returned home 6 hours later, the vocals sounded as though she moved closer to the microphone and aspirants are "pushing" out towards the microphone. Which results in her voice having more "power" in the emotional sense. It’s really strikingly improved.

So, using one Furutech on the NAD was superior to using 4 of them (which is what you had stated at one point). Therefore, you were right, and I am (happily) wrong. The re-evaluation (with a much superior isolation system) shows out the Furutech as better than I had thought. So, thanks. I don’t think this would have happened without the better isolation capabilities the system now has, but that’s moot. The Furutechs will sound better as one’s room acoustics, electrical quality and isolation improve. I’m really glad you persisted. Thanks again.