Who do that Voodoo...

[wkhanna]

After the closure of a thread which involved a somewhat ‘spirited’ discussion regarding tweaks of Quantum nature………

Dan (PewterTA) & I have decided to conduct some informal testing for ourselves.
We will also be open to allowing others who may be interested in participating in this ‘testing’ to ‘lend’ certain products we are purchasing for independent evaluation by other members. We will get into the ‘dirty’ details later regarding the specifics of the ‘loaner’ program.

For the time being, I am ordering one of those ‘super’ fuses for my DAC.
Specifically, a HiFi Tuning Gold Audiophile Fuse in the 1 amp fast-blow range to directly replace the OEM BUSS fuse in my Schiit Gungnir DAC.

Additionally, I will be purchasing a WA-Quantum Chip sold specifically for TT/Headshell/Tonearm application.

Hang on to your neurons, your electron valance, your strings & your quark condensates…….
…..this should be a wild ride.

I took a few pics of my Gungnir while I had it naked to determine the specs for the OEM fuse:

[PewterTA]

I'm all in... I figure if you can't waste some money... then you're not doing things right! LOL Well I'm hoping to find out either what I truly think... none of this will make much of a difference at all. Though I should preface that with I think the fuses could possibly do something as it goes with my thinking of getting the purist electrical signal to the components as possible. The "chips"... well... I'll be open minded... but I stand on the side of "No F'ing way." lol So amaze me... I want to be amazed!

Here's some picture of the fuses I'd like to get for my CDP/DAC as I use it.

[wkhanna]

... but I stand on the side of "No F'ing way." lol So amaze me... I want to be amazed!

Now, Now, Dan........
Let us not introduce any prejudice bias into this 'officially sanctioned, independently audited & vetted' study. :W
Gee...now you got me thinking......
.....maybe we can get some Federal funding or grants for this...

.....anybody out there proficient at writing research proposals?

[PewterTA]

If we can get some funding then we have a LOT more things to check and verify I tell ya... I see a lot of neat things that i want to test out. Maybe some Cardas wire blocks (you know since ground is killing our ability to properly hear)... to many of the other tried and true audio facts and fictions.... lol

Really you know the only thing stopping us from testing just about everything out there is the funding.

I can get my sister or her husband to write us up a good research proposal, heck they both do it for a living (basically)! ha ha!

[wkhanna]

Here is a primer for those not intimately familiar with some of the more 'esoteric' offerings currently out there.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/listening-112

[HedgeHog]

Thx for trying out these "tweaks".

I'll be getting some more chips and fuses to try for my second system. Will be getting Nordost Sort Kones (BC) some time today so I'll place on under various components to see if I hear anything.

I just wanted to add that while I love what you guys are doing, if we get positive feedback from other forumites then I will conclude that there is a mob mentality here. It will basically say opinions of some members are more valid than others. One is shilling while the other is validating. Just saying...

Have fun guys and I look forward to hearing the results. BTW, The Cable Company confirmed to me yesterday that they have incorporated the WA Quantum fuse chip into the HiFi Tuning Supreme fuses. So one does not require purchase of the chips for these fuses like before.

Cheers,
-Hedwig

[mjb]

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

I'm looking forward to this too.... bring it on!

[PewterTA]

Well I have to say, I'm one for tweaks... especially when I can say without a doubt there's something to them.

Tonight I took my Rotel RB-1090 apart and all I did was put Deoxit on the terminals of the fuses. I can't really say why I didn't do this when I modified it....but I'm smacking myself in the forhead now. Well let me take a step back. First, when I pulled the fuses to find out what went in my CDP, I decided to put deoxit on those terminals and went I started listening again, I thought I noticed a little better detail and a little more musicality to the system. I figured I was just hearing things. Two nights later now...and yeah I can say that it sounds a little bit better.

So tonight, I took the 5 fuses out of the 1090 and put them back in (that was all). I wanted to take out the possibly of reseating them. Well to me, I thought there should be a difference...but if I was able to hear it I really couldn't tell anything. Then I pulled them all out again and put Deoxit on the tips of the fuses again and put them back in. That's all I did and I have to say... I've been sitting here for about 3 hours now and I have to say the PRaT is a better. There's more energy in the music, detail is a little bit better, more realism to the sound, and (to my surprise) my soundstage moved back about a foot. It now sounds pushed back almost behind the speakers. As if the sound, to my ears now starts right behind the speaker instead of right in front of it like I'm very much used to.

Which as Bill and anyone that's followed my comments on my system, it initially (I mean from the beginning) was about 2 to 3 feet infront of the speakers. So it's definitely changed a lot, the more I've learned.

I think Bill and myself are one of the few people that will give anything a fair shot. That's why we've become such good friends (well maybe it's because we like all the same things -- good music and beer lol) because we both keep our minds open and are willing to try unconventional things. The nice thing is we've gotten a good system down where we each go, "Tell me what you hear" and we both know to describe what our opinions are on each other's systems as to has anything changed or not. Fun thing is... almost all but maybe one time we have each described what was in the other person's head, almost verbatim. So when you think something sounds better... it's nice to have another person back that opinion up...or tell you you're nuts (and here's why)...

[wkhanna]

As I told Dan earlier, when I had pulled the OEM fuse to verify the rating, I noticed no difference in my DAC after it was re-seated.
I do not have any Deoxit here, so I'll be getting a bottle shortly. (I can not use up all of Dan's).

We will be getting the list of all the 'tweaks' we are going to try finalized over the weekend.
Our order should be placed no later than Monday.

[wkhanna]

I just wanted to add that while I love what you guys are doing, if we get positive feedback from other forumites then I will conclude that there is a mob mentality here. It will basically say opinions of some members are more valid than others. One is shilling while the other is validating. Just saying...


-Hedwig

Hey, all we are dong is giving this stuff a try.
Once we listen with our own ears we tell everyone what we do & do not hear.
Simple.
It will still just be our opinion.
But before we judge, we will first listen.

[PewterTA]

This would've been perfect if we got the stuff the week the wife was in florida... could've done a lot more listening! ha ha. :P

[PewterTA]

Well we weren't able to get together this weekend, so hopefully either throughout the week or by this next weekend we can figure out what all we want to order.

On the side note thread that I started...

After listening to some movie stuff and some music things off the TV (Later with Jools Holland).... the RMB-1095 that I have for the Center & surrounds really sounded out of place after adding the deoxit to the RB-1090 fuses. So this was my best way of noticing that sound did in fact change on the amps. Before everything was seemless. Then it was very noticeable that the L/R sounded differently from the Center & Surrounds....

It was enough that I went to bed EARLY Friday night to get out Saturday morning and work on the 1095. And it was a pain, 11 fuses and I had to remove both the L/R heatsinks just to get to the 4 bottom fuses and the surge supressor board to get them all done. After I put everything back together and tested it with the same material the harmony was back! So I was very happy about that. Then after doing that, I decided to bust out the technical service manual and check the biases on each channel. I found 3 out of the 5 channels were really out of wack. I put them back in to the proper setting according to the tech. manual and again listened. WOW. I didn't think that would make a difference...but now all sound is completely and utterly seemless. The front sound stage perfectly moves sounds from either side across the center channel without any type of degredation. The surround sounds now seem to evelop me now... My system was good before...but the surrounds definitely didn't have the full envoloping sound they have now (my surrounds, due to the room) are directly on my left and right on the plane that I sit at... can't have them behind me.

So reguardless of whether there's anything too this... I'm a much happier camper listening now... all I've wanted to do was just sit back and listening all weekend...but didn't get a chance to do much of that. I have to say Classical has gotten the best improvement overall... I'm not saying my system can reproduce every nuance of a symphonic orchestra...but it's a LOT closer to than what it had been.... It's enough that I can close my eyes and feel like I'm closer to sitting in a hall as the acoustics are much closer to how they should be (I listened to a lot of classical performances while in college for a few classes I had)...so I know how it should sound and my system can NOT reproduce that... and in fact I've never heard a system that could. But mine is getting closer. hee hee.

Bill I have plenty of Deoxit...so we can use up mine on anything you want to do and then worry about who gets what afterwards!

So over all... it was a worthwhile weekend. I'm thinking I might check my pre-amp and power conditioner to see if I will clean up the fuses in those now. Both are a pain in the butt to disconnect/move... so I'm thinking I may hold off and enjoy for the moment until the bug hits me.

[PewterTA]

I'm bringing this back up as I have to say I'm very impressed with the HiFi Tuning Fuse I've gotten. I got one for my PS Audio P10 Power Re-generator and I have to say it definitely was a pleasant increase in...well everything good! There was noticeable difference in everything from top to bottom, now it wasn't night and day shocking...it was more of a, "there is a difference, I don't have to struggle to hear it, I really like what I hear" type of thing. For the $50, it was worth it in a comparison to some of the money I've spent which didn't give me a good of a return on the investment.

Now... would I buy fuses for all my amps, preamp, CDP, etc. No... that's a LOT of fuses and I'd end up spending another $1k for all those upgrades. Heck, my Pre has 8 or 10 fuses alone.

Now with me just getting an NAD M51... it does have a fuse (externally), so I am planning on getting one of the HiFi Tuning fuses for that definitely as I think that could make a noticeable difference (again, not a huge one, but one enough to warranty the cost of a single fuse). Funny thing is the HiFi Tuning fuses are DEFINITELY directional. One way I put it in and was impressed with the difference, the other way and the sound just flattened out to what it was without the fuse (and maybe even worse). So definitely if anyone tries one of these fuses, make sure you try it both ways just to make sure it's in the right way to sound better!