Comparing the three fuses I have tried, Ultimate P. sounds too warm and too thick compared to Purple, and M-1 would fall in between the two. What M-1 brought is richness and details. It is really the best combination of the Purple and the U.P. The M-1 also sounds more pleasant at the beginning because of its rich/warm characters. As Luca mentioned, the magic is from the voices, it simply has more weights resulting in lifelike presentation!
At first, I thought it sounded too warm with too much weight at lower frequency, but over time the music turns to neutral. However, when I added the second, the warmness and bass fatness came back. It did not disappear to a point I think is more balanced until TODAY.
Now I am listening the YELLO and Herbie H., I miss some of the Purple’s clean, details, and slight thinness sound somehow. Two M-1s may push the tune towards the heavier side of neutral and richness if that makes any sense.
Not to put too much pressure on Luca, but the third M-1 evaluation will be interesting.
After a week with the M1 that will be 168 hours I’ll compare to purple take notes and put he M1 in for another week and do the same. After 300 hours the M1 should be fully broken in and shouldn’t change sonically after that.
I did compare all three fuses in my P20. The Ultimate Premier is the most veiled sounding, but the most warm sounding. The Purple is much clearer, more extended highs, and more aggressive sounding. the M-1 has the warmth and even more full and clear sounding than the UP, and more full and natural sounding than the Purple. That’s why many associate it with analog. As for open and air, if your system has it already, the M-1 will not artificially boost it any further.
Under pressure? Nah, this is the funny part of this hobby. I’m listening to the last album of Jack Johnson, no matter fuses and gears now, just relaxing sooo much! It’s a kind of pure joy of music!
Let the world and bad things out of the room, almost for a while!
I’ve just one week to tweak before flying to California the second week of July, if pandemic permits us (here in Italy numbers are growing again, sobh!)
I will say that I like the M1 in our P20. Better separation between instruments is my observation. I thought about a chart (tips of a hat to @luca.pelliccioli) but I get enough of analytics at work to choke the entire forum membership.
It took about a week to sound good. I had a Purple in that I was about to take out, I just didn’t like it, it never opened up in either direction. I was about to go back to stock when the M1 cheering started.
Will I get another M1? Dunno. I don’t want to spend money on fuses I might not need by Winter/Spring. Thinking about a slow move to Pass Labs gear, but waiting until the end of summer to see where we land with the DS MKII. If the price of the 600’s is any indication, the MKII could very well be $10-12K. This is complete speculation on my part. But based on the cost increases I see at work for data center compute, I have my suspicions. If this does happen, I’ll be looking very hard a the used Pass Market and hot rod my DS MKI. I wouldn’t mind a XP-22 and X250.8. I thought about Gryphon, but not a fan of their repair policy. They only repair dealer sold gear. I get why they do that, but it’s not for me.
It’s funny, the common theme of comments about the M-1 in this thread were the exact same as my listening impressions yesterday when I upgraded my audio pc’s ram from Corsair Vengeance to industrial wide temp ECC Apacer. More natural body/tangibility, better separation, placement, depth, detail.
I pulled an Orange out of my BHK pre and put in an M-1 and I did the same in my Bartók. Initially the sound was muddy and exaggerated the mid range. Two days later it was better. Now in the fourth day, I get what people like about the fuse. Layers of details and a nice presence in all the right places. Right now it’s a keeper………until the next big thing comes along.
I still have some left, I’ll have to play around with it. The first step was putting aluminum covers on it. On the 3m front. I have squares on all the motherboard io, a few chips, ssd, and made a couple tuning rings for things like the HDMI cable.
I haven’t tried HDMI tuning rings yet. I run a AQ Dragon to the DS DAC. The 72Volts DBS should be enough perhaps. If I recall @dchang05 played with absorber near his Dragon HDMI but not tuning ring.
What HDMI cord brand are you using and what size and placement of tuning ring does it seem to like?
My ultraRendu has 3M AB7050HF absorption near USB components and so does the Matrix. That helps immensely quiet things
Perhaps a I should try a tuning ring on my Inakustik Referenz USB and ethernet, and Dragon HDMI cords. One has to be careful getting the 3M absorber to close to the inductor coils of ethernet voltage step up transformers at the I/O connectors in your router or switching areas. I did some absorber in my Nighthawk router switch on noisy components and that really helps.
Just started my listening sessions with the third M-1 in SPP. I’m taking notes, of course…
As before with the King in P20 and BHK Pre I can have some robust impressions after almost 5 days, even if since the begging what I’m hearing is more… silence! Yes a profound solid black background, really really pleasant. No mention bass presence and veiled warmer feeling we are all used to by now.
This time it seems that the King is providing something different in SPP. More LPs needed to better evaluate, anyhow this is a very good start.