New SR Master fuse review vs AM M1 and Purple to follow

Oy—My friend, The Tweak King gave me a 2A Master fuse as a gift for getting his son, N. Do-Well a job.
The fuse has been in my constantly-on preamp. I heard an improvement in clarity yesterday. Today i can’t tell.

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You are hanging around Al too often :joy:

I really like the Master fuse, it made a great difference. But I had funny experiences with audiophile fuses before. it seems the longer they stayed in the system, the more ordinary they became.

There is no way I want to compare the Master to stock fuse now, I do not think I could take the result! :open_mouth:

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Perfectly stated. Some changes that I’ve made to my system make their presence known with every listening session.One example in my case is my new cartridge.
Some upgrades however fade over time–for me.

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Maybe I should create a Go Fund Me account to be gifted components that don’t earn their keep or expense.

…“starving audiophile need recurring fixes…was once a respected man until he turned…”

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This is just my silly joke: have sex with the same great lovely beatiful woman the first time, vs with the same great loveyly beautiful woman everyday and night for 6 months straight.

I suspect something similar is going on with fuses, regardless how expensive they are.

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The problem is :

or perhaps earwax…hearing loss etc

Best wishes

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Wasn’t Groucho Marx the King of Hedonia?

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I think it was Fredonia! But turning that into a great punny response was good! :wink: :rofl:

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Thanks, great advice! I sent him an email right now.

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a/k/a, "audiophile, in some extreme cases…?

:wink:

The offer is fine.
The Dutch wholesaler already raised the prices for the SR Master to 649 euros two weeks ago. I’ve been hearing accented syllables in female voices for 200 hours. Is it just because I’m listening so carefully? Is it the master, the Dragon XLR, which plays a good 150 hours, the NCF connections from my Dragon HC to the power plant? Maybe that will calm down in a few hours. It is also possible that the light emphasis lies somewhere else in the chain

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Yes, it’s like Stier’s saying. With us, the price has increased at the wholesaler’s. In that respect, the offer of Peacock is doubly welcome: old price plus trade in.
There’s of course also waiting until they offer a three-for-the-price-of-two, or better…
I chose to enjoy life (better) in the current moment, this time. :wink:

The package that arrived at my door was light Indeed, but far from empty. It contained the highly anticipated Master fuses. And I forgot to mention, they received a few days burn in with an alternative cable cooker treatment as well.

So I looked into this guy Ted Denney of SR. Rumour has it that before hawking cables he was a bodybuilder. His chief engineer was a salesman. Not a science qualification in sight. The engineer has two connections on his LinkedIn page, one to enjoythemusic, a website where one of their chief PR agents Mr Becker writes “reviews”. Mr Becker’s qualifications? He spent his working life running a family furniture business after an education in liberal arts. Mr Becker is aged 77, so no doubt has age-limited hearing.

Amazingly, Mr Denney has some registered patents.

  • My favourite is acoustic paint. (I seem to remember Artex in the 1970s and 1980s was very popular). He doesn’t seem to have tried to flog it yet.

  • A close second is a box that eats energy waves. Not seen that one yet, but here’s a preview.

  • Next are tuning cups. These he did sell under a brand called Acoustic Art, reviewed rather sceptically in 2010. These were allegedly based on Tibetan tuning bowls. He admits they were copied from a near identical product made by Franck Tchang a few years earlier, which are famous in Europe for being the maddest audio tweak next to wearing different coloured socks.
    The Synergistic Research ACOUSTIC ART Real-Time Analogue Room Treatment - HomeTheaterHifi.com
    He claims to have done a load of metallurgy research. We bought one of these in Kathmandu, where they are mostly made, and they are made of brass (that’s copper and tin). No research needed. The important thing is that they are hand beaten brass, unlike Denney’s ones which are cast metal. So he’s missed the point completely. Plus the fact that the Tibetans don’t use these for room acoustics.

  • Finally is an AC voltage conditioner, basically a sandwich of plates alternatively carrying AC and DC. It’s meant to reduce noise.

So there is no evidence of any science around SR cables or fuses, but I am looking forward to Synergistic Research acoustic paint, with added graphene (literally). Why? - because graphene sells any audio tweak.

My hat goes off to this guy - he’s clearly a fantastic salesman and can talk the hind leg off a donkey, but there’s now way any of my money is funding his next Ferrari.

p.s. The science of fuses is extremely advanced, having been researched for over 100 years. The “science” used to sell fuses is not just wrong, it’s usually irrelevant. But this doesn’t stop people spending $thousands.

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Although I’m convinced (by listening experience) of the effect of better fuses, I love your etective investigations and the exciting humorous findings from them! This was fun to read!

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Your scrutiny and scepticism is much appreciated. However, there’s undeniable sound quality, at least in their main products and IME. These products may be overpriced, that’s another discussion. Whether or not to buy, remains up to each one of us.

It seems to me, we can have a ‘do measurements matter’ type of discussion here as well. Accompanied with reviewing (scientific backing of) claims.

As a side thought: what would be the result if the likes of Iconoclast where to produce high end fuses?

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Nice! Can you please ask around, since they’re using it for tuning human vibrations, whether they’ve also found other applications? We may be surprised.
The placing upon a head seems slightly unusual, but singers do the same using a tuning fork against their skull.

Yesterday, I happened to read an article on Solfeggio frequencies based on a piece by Arvo Pärt with the same name.
Just a thought: when these bowls are similarly beneficially tuned and placed in a room, their frequency will become slightly resonant (ever so short), thus affecting our perception, not SQ nor room acoustics perse.

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Fuses are safety devices. Generally, they are made of lead and antimony, because they must fail at low temperature (around 300c), whereas silver and gold melt at around 1,000c. Consumer fuses do not heat up and change resistance up to their rated current. Improved quality fuses for medical, audio etc. have been made for years, mainly by Littelfuse (their research is published on their site) and more specifically Hifituning. They cost about $5 to $30 last time I looked.

If you don’t like fuses, just insert a copper connector rod (you can get them online), hope your device does not malfunction and power it off when not in use. I don’t recommend that, but people do it.

UK and EU require fuses to be mass produced, because it ensures consistency of manufacture and ease of testing. Costs of compliance make mass production a requirement.

I use solid silver treated balanced cables (I forget the treatment, but it takes a few days to make). They are on two different levels. The more basic one cost £130 for a 1m pair. It compares closely to the SR Foundation that costs £700 - so SR is 5 times more expensive. But then mine come from a supplier who does no marketing, they come in a plastic bag and he doesn’t have a Ferrari.

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With regard to acoustic paint, found some extreme Artex. Some of this stuff was found to include asbestos, one reason it may have gone out of fashion.

too difficult for me to crawl on

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Reminds me of the wall plaster found in e.g. Italian and Greec restaurants of the 70’s. Never knew it was acoustically treating their customers. :wink: