I saw Dave Pritchard’s comments about wall outlets. I have most of the same as he does; Oyaide R-1, Teslaplex, Teslaplex SE, Furutech GTD-X (rhodium), FIM 880s, (blue and white: I like the blue better, but the FIMs sound a bit soft) PS Audio Classic and Premier outlets and the Maestro. Unlike David, I do like the Teslaplex SE (although it IS a little forward in the upper midrange). And the Oyaide is rich, but it has a definite sound: it moves the soundstage forward on EVERYTHING, so it’s a permanent in-your-face soundstage, but with the consequence of foreshortened depth. I liked the forwardness of the soundstage when I got it years ago (it was like moving from Row K to Row F), until I realized EVERYthing sounded up front, even RCA Living Stereos, which are certainly not recorded to be forward-sounding. RCA placed their microphones much further back than Mercury, so you get more of the hall ambience than direct sound on RCAs. An equally nice sound, just not quite as "immediate." But just as grainless as some Mercurys.
I found the Quantum Black as Dave describes it, although I’d say the noise floor, my Arcam FMJ CD player, is light years ahead of the SR20 model that was previously in it. In fact, the difference between an SR20 and a Red, to me, is good, but not the proverbial "order of magnitude" (the late HP's favorite phrase) better.
And I can see how Siddh’s would see what he observed. One thing about the Stillpoints, I found: as you move up from the Ultra Minis to the SS (I never got 5s: against my religion to pay that much, not to mention, against my wallet!), the midbass becomes "leaner." Tight and harmonically great, with terrific impact, but leaner. I remember clearly that Robert Harley pointed this out in his review of the 5s in TAS when he reviewed them. I would conclude - although I’d have to find that damn Audio Horizon fuse first - that the Audio Horizon is a richer-sounding fuse than the Synergistic. I have observed, as I mentioned earlier, that the Teslaplex SE has a slight brightness to it, which, in Enjoy The Music, the reviewer also noticed. But in my system, the Quantum Black fuse ANNOUNCED itself, as I noted in another thread. It was as though it was saying, just wait 'til you pull your system out of mute. I felt like the Boogeyman had jumped out and scared the daylights out of me (it was pretty astounding, seriously. I'm not joking.) I'd sauntered into the music room, sat down and casually thought, "I'll listen to a few minutes of music" given it is now half past midnight. I’d last listened to it last night and it sounded very good - but not astounding. Somewhere between last night and tonight, it transformed. Tonight it sounded more like the live mike feed I'm used to hearing when I listen to the Metropolitan Opera live on Saturday afternoons, which, even on a mediocre tuner - but a decent system, you can tell it’s live and not a recording. I’ve never heard - using an integrated (I had the NAD C325BEE in there) such a vivid representation of a live orchestra sitting there quietly between numbers - and with the harmonic information intact enough that the Rochester orchestra hall sounds more like the hall than it has in past listening, using mostly the Mercury Living Presence Boxed Set CDs. To say it is vivid is not an exaggeration. Normally, I hear a sound or two from one or two members of the orchestra moving in their chairs in between numbers (Mercury did not always stop the tape: in some cuts, they clearly let it go from one cut to the next and continued running the tape). Tonight, my head was swiveling around like a cabbage on a stick, hearing sounds coming from every part of the orchestra. This bespeaks a highly significant reduction in grain, which then manifests as a more continuous presentation due to the lack of grain and, as a necessary adjunct, much, MUCH lower noise floor. The presentation is simply more "see into" than it was. Even though the NAD integrated is a bit on the dark side of the Force, with the Synergistic, it's as though you went from listening to an orchestra light by 60 watt bulbs to 80 watt bulbs (yes, I do know it's 60w and then 75w, but I'm making a point here). It's obviously more lit up from the front to the back of the sound state. Not more resolution - well, not with the NAD - but more transparent.
I’ll have to listen further to see if it resembles Siddh’s description, but so far it does not. But, I agree with him: fuses are like power cords or interconnects: some components they mesh with seamlessly, and in other components, they are less favorable. That’s been my experience, too. For example, I would never again put Hi Fi Tuning fuses, Supreme or otherwise, in my Hurricanes. The sound becomes wimpy, and the Hurricanes are, if nothing else, extremely powerful-sounding amps. And their realism, although the resolution doesn’t match my Goldmund Mimesis 9 amp, when I had it, possess a realism the Goldmund could only dream of having, despite that spectacular high frequency extension it had. I’m sure putting the Blacks into the Hurricanes eventually. This is one hell of a fuse, and I’ve had HiFi Tunings, AMRs, Furutech fuses (which I dislike intensely, and I don’t like saying that about anyone’s product, but they do something unpleasant to the midbass as well as the upper midrange and treble ranges), Audio Horizon and, of course, the 3 generation of Synergistic fuses.
My room in CT is tube trapped, same as it was when I lived in San Francisco. I’ve had Tube Traps for the past 30 years: takes the room out of the equation and makes it easier to evaluate. I’d love to try Synergistic’s stuff, but the room’s quite good as it is, so I’ll stick to the fuses.
Whether or not it works in one place in your system, try it in different places. It is a truly excellent fuse, and much superior to the previous Synergistic fuses.
