I just want to share a few notes about my experience with TC, which I paid full price for. My system is a Equi=Core 1800/Core Power Technologies feeding everything; MacBookPro running BitPerfect and iTunes>USB Disruptor cable>Schiit Yggy (v1 and Gen5 USB)>Clarus Crimson XLR>ARC REF6>Clarus Crimson XLR+Audioquest Irish Red Sub Cable>MartinLogan BF210 sub and >ARC REF150SE>Clarus Crimson Speaker Cable or TA Gen5 Ultra>MartinLogan CLXs.
The first weekend, I pasted all the power connections from the wall to the 1800 and out to all the components, except the IEC connectors on the REF6 and Yggy. I noticed an immediate drop in the noise floor, even though I had not been aware that I had a noise problem. All the music came out of a blacker black and I could hear more fine details.
The second weekend I pasted the outside grounds of the USB cables, the IEC connector and XLR cables coming out of the Yggy, and the cables going into the ARC REF150SE and ML BL210 sub. There was again a noticeable improvement. After hearing Laurie Anderson perform at the Town Hall in NYC in February, I have become quite taken with her new album with the Cronus Quartet, entitled "Landfall" (44.1kHz/24bit files). What become quite clear after this second round of pasting was that the violin phrase that opens the first track, "CNN Predicts a Monster Storm", was not one violin, but very clearly two. Likewise, on other parts of this track where I thought it was one instrument, it was now clearly two (e.g., viola and cello). Beautiful music made even more captivating with TC.
The third weekend, my Herbie’s tube dampers (HTDs) had arrived and I replaced all the tubes in the REF6 with new ARC tubes with HTDs, but not before pasting the tube pins. Also the IEC connector, along with all the input and output cables. Again, a clearly audible improvement was heard. The instruments in the Kronos Quartet became even more obviously separate and the human voice (including Laurie Anderson) would at times become spookily realistic. Great stuff.
On the fourth weekend, I went skiing in the Canadian Rockies, but on my return last night and again tonight, the system sounds amazing. So much detail and realism. I have a few things left to paste:
1. SR Blue Fuse in REF6, once I decide proper orientation
2. Tube pins in ARC REF150SE, after installing HTDs
3. Speaker cables, once I decide which of the two are better in this system.
I am traveling again this weekend, so these final touches will have to wait for week six. I would have preferred to do everything at once, that was not possible with my other responsibilities.
In terms of order of magnitude of improvement of TC, I will make one comparison and that is to replacing the mains fuse of the REF6 with the SR Blue. The first week improvement of pasting the power connections had approximately twice the beneficial effect than the fuse. Everything after that has been a further improvement. So, in terms of value of Blue fuses vs. TC, TC is the clear winner.
Jim