All,
I wanted to take a moment to write what I hope is a helpful post. As you can see from my signature tag, I have a reasonably nice system; I have tried to take time to buy pieces that I love, regardless of cost. I am by nature a skeptical person, and have learned a ton from this community over the last 9 months.
The first lesson I devoutly believe in is people trade gear and "upgrade" without really ever spending the time to maximize the potential of their current gear.
Some people call these additions "tweaks", I call them tuning adjustments. Some have transformed my system to punch well, well above its weight and some have done nothing. I just tested an $18,000 power cable and spent enormous patient time evaluating and it was good not great, and was inferior in my system to my current loom. That is to say, I don't care about price, I care about what I hear with my ears, in my room, in my system. Music makes the soul complete and its incredibly important to my journey in life.
My first tuning adjustment was fuses. I replaced all stock fuses with SR purple and pink fuses. I spoke at length with many members of the community that are in the top quartile if not decile of respected participants in this hobby; folks that are (i) highly technical (ii) skeptical (iii) have great ears (iv) decades of experience so are not newbies. Some have had all range from Master to entry SR, different colors of QSA and stock.
We all honestly believe we have very revealing systems. If you choose the wrong fuses, and just go for the most expensive, my experience is that the mid range can get sucked out. The soundstage can get so large it becomes unmusical.
Enter an experiment: we all tried the Swiss Digital Fuse box.
The Setup
I will be honest; we did not use the piggy tail and have given Mark feedback that for me and others, the piggy introduced complexity with combining it with our hard chosen cables that we spend hours deliberating on. For some, the tone was off with the piggy introduced.
We purchased a $4 adaptor from Amazon and stuck one end into swiss digital and the other cable to component. European guys had another solution; some actually used extra cable to fine tune, but others avoided the need for an extra cable with a schuko adaptor.
The Results
The group was over the moon happy. The swiss digital has the soundstage of the Master without sucking out the midrange. One guy sent me a text "this a steup to all SR fuses, it went from catastrophic synthetic mess with piggy tail to a wonderful organic pleasure without. I get all the benefits of separation and space. The fuse box stays, sound is phenomenal. Open, spacious and beautiful. My system has never sounded better. Ordering 3 more. "
I personally now have swiss boxes in all of my components. All made large impact, and in particular, I swapped out an SR purple in S booster that powers switch and OMG, that was enormous and like the digital music took a shower. Separation, detail and clean but not sterile, it is musical and super engaging. Super natural, no artifice, large soundstage and great separation of instruments and detail but no remnant of audiophile austerity. I am looking for music not sound.
Recommendation
Mark seems to really care about his work and customers. Its a passion. He could sell for a lot higher price but he is a model for the industry as he tried to lower costs and pass on to customers so that they feel like the value received is greater than the price. This is what should be imho the goal of all individuals that sell to consumers, regardless of price.
So, get a box. He has a 30 day trial or full refund. To me, I cannot imagine a better asymmetric opportunity - you pay a small amount of money relative in this hobby and it either (i) does nothing in your system and you learned and no cash out or (ii) it transforms your system and you are super happy and it is not temporary as it does not ever blown out.
This is such a wonderful addition that has allowed my friends and I to advance our systems together on a small addition and supporting a company that is doing things correctly. All our systems are better off for this wonderful innovation.
Highly highly recommend. Run don't walk.
www.positive-feedback.com
