My first acquaintance with Custom Sonic Line power fuses was when the first of their two creators (Konstantinos Lois, and George Charopoulos) approached me for a test of the best by far (his words) power fuses I have ever encountered. The truth is that when I hear such statements, I am very wary, as it is one thing what each creator thinks about his brainchild, and another thing what impressions each user, let alone, the discerning one, gets.
But, as I have a soft spot for Greek manufacturers (and we all know how much we need them as a country) I accepted the invitation to test a set of fuses, on my DAC, my preamp and my final. In fact, Mr. Lois insisted that the fuse that makes the greatest difference is the one in the final amplifier, while the others play a complementary role in the final sonic outcome. Here is a short presentation from the manufacturer about what they are, what they are made of and what specifications they cover (don't forget the power fuses of any device are there to protect our devices from destruction on the one hand and on the other hand, as a result of that destruction, to prevent electrocution or even fires in our home. They are not some "vice" of the manufacturers, so don't remove them if you want to have peace of mind.
Description and construction characteristics.
SPECIFICATIONS. "Our fuse starts by having in its original form ceramic body and quartz crystals inside, to meet the requirements of the International Electrotechnical Commission ( IEC, International Electrotechnical Commission). The fusible conductor internally exhausts all international specifications with absolute precision and no deviations from regulatory specifications, having zero tolerances".
CAPS. "Beryllium copper alloy metal parts with noble metal enrichment of the PGM group (platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, osmium, and ruthenium) are plated in two layers of different thickness and metal combination depending on the role of the fuse in the system. We apply direct plating of absolute purity of the metal in question.
BODY. "On the ceramic cylinder, electromagnetic shielding crystals are first coated which then cooperate through chemical compounds with stones to damp the thread oscillation as well as other external excitations, creating a protective cage in the fusion conductor and the appropriate support in the caps, so that the conductive parts perform to their maximum potential”.
PROCESSING. "The specific power supply requirements, depending on the type of device (pre, DAC, amp), lead to a specialised approach to managing the input current. With appropriately targeted treatment, the fuse in its output relieves the device of unnecessary management volume, utilizes and delivers as needed the necessary to perform to its limits.
The processing stages in the composition of the materials of the safety, the individual mechanical processing, and the electrochemical sequence exploit the way of interaction of the alloys in successive reactions with the crystals and rocks, to allow maximum information gathering and subsequent reconfiguration by a staggered calibration of acoustic parameters, in which the acoustic skills are quantitatively distributed
The processing protocol defined (specific to the type of security depending on the role of the device) prevents an exponential increase in individual gain, so that the equally distributed features, with smooth continuity, complete balanced harmonic integrity in an environment of maximum potential”.
The management shall delimit their range to prevent selective energy transfer to a single band of the acoustic spectrum. In addition, it shall ensure the inviolability of the lower permissible noise threshold, so that the part of the fullness of the signal is not masked.
But finally, what does a system with these fuses sound like?
With the fuses in place of some others from well-known manufacturers (and after leaving the devices on for over 30 hours to allow enough current to pass through them) in my DAC (Ideon Audio Absolute Epsilon DAC), a Pass Labs preamp and my Class-D power amp, the result I got had the following characteristics: It was as if the electronic music players were no longer there as if they had disappeared, and the result was only great music from the -also- "disappeared" speakers. In other words, while I had fuses at the input of the power strip of each device, it was as if I had none. It was as if the devices had finally managed to show their true (or if you like their best) character. Truth be told, I've only gotten something like this when I briefly literally "shorted" the fuses on my devices sometime in the past to see what it was that was affecting the sound, and whether it made sense to spend a small fortune to put in some name-brand, specialized fuses. Well, now I have both the protection and sound quality I deserve through my devices.
Worth a try!
Yes for sure, the test is mandatory; but believe me, it's worth it, as it's the result that counts. The manufacturer insists that its fuses can be fitted to any class of device (even of more modest specifications) and will give a significant gain in the final sound quality. I didn't test it, but if he is so sure you can try them there too.
They come highly recommended!
Thanasis Moraitis
Reviewer for hiendnews.gr
