I'm an audiophile and studio person.
Before I had my first set of powered monitors (Genelecs), I had a pair of B&W monitors powered by a Krell amplifier in my studio. This speaker was used as the near-field system at George Martin's Air Studios in England, and its larger brother is still used as a mid-field system at Abbey Road. They're not junk.
A friend owned an audio shop, and asked me to try a pair of very expensive speaker cables. They did sound better, and as far as I was concerned that difference was undeniable enough that I bought them.
My studio tech came over to do some maintenance, a guy with a EE Degree from Michigan who knew his stuff. He took a look at these very thick cables, snorted, shook his head and bet me I'd never be able to tell the difference between those cables and some good quality zip cord in a double blind test.
WTF, I didn't care whether I was proven right or not, I was his client paying the bill. If he was right, might have been worth knowing! So I took him up on the challenge and bet him I'd be able to.
He ran the test back and forth ten times to start. I should mention that the monitors were on stands behind my recording console, and I wouldn't have seen a thing he was doing, and definitely couldn't see which cables were attached to the back of the monitors, the stands were thick ASC Tube Trap speaker stands, and hid them. but he also made me leave the room each time he swapped the cables out.
I was able to pick out which cable was which 9 times out of ten. Honestly, by the tenth time my ears were tired and I missed.
But 9 times out of ten isn't random luck. It's statistically significant.
My goodness, my tech was ANGRY! He said, "Something must be wrong because it's impossible that you can tell the difference."
So I said, "OK, let's try it a couple more times then, but first check everything out and make sure you're doing it to your own satisfaction."
We tried it twice more. I was correct both times. He got up, said, "That's scientifically impossible," and walked out of my studio in a huff, muttering, "The test couldn't have been right, something went wrong."
Yes, something WAS wrong:
What was wrong was his insistence that there couldn't be an audible difference. But I was familiar with the cables after a lot of listening, and knew what to listen for.
So yeah, I get what expensive cables do. I'd still use them for unpowered monitors.
I also use moderately expensive power cords with my recording gear, studio monitors, isolation transformer, and guitar amplifiers. I tried a few, and it was easy to hear the difference (with the ones I now use; I previously tried others that sounded no different than the original power cords that came with the gear).
My studio owner friends come to my place and tell me the monitoring system is incredible. It's not like I do audio demos for them. They just say it on their own.
Just last week a friend with a fantastic studio came over to work on a project and said, "This sounds like a mastering suite."
There's a reason why.
People aren't aware that the perhaps the greatest mastering engineer of them all, Bob Ludwig (who recently retired) was fanatical about powering his gear, to the point where his mastering suite was not even connected to the AC grid.
He powered it with a room full of storage batteries (!). And there was a lot more arcane and unusual equipment. I know not only from industry articles, but because my son went there when some of his recordings were mastered, saw the stuff first-hand, and told me about it.
Why does this kind of (ostensibly) crazy stuff get used by one of the most serious and successful mastering engineers on the planet?
Because whether we like it or not, this stuff matters to the audio. An experienced listener can hear it. That's all that counts.
Now, would I spend $200 on a fuse? I'm not sure. I spend a ton on hand-tested NOS tubes, power cords, signal cables, and all kinds of other crazy stuff that matters. Last summer I bought one of Sommer's very high end mic cables, an 18 footer for about $300. Figured I'd try it after hearing some good things.
I posted an A/B test recording on my own forum. Everyone who listened heard the difference between it and the Mogami I usually used. I immediately bought several more. That's what I use with condenser mics now.
So yeah, a little bit nuts but if that's what it takes...
So maybe I'd try one of those fuses, if I had some spare coin to burn and wanted another tweak. You never know until you try.
I should also point out that I've rejected a lot of things I tried. I'm not afraid to say something is BS if I can't hear a difference, it happens often enough. And not only the weird stuff. I've taken back lots of gear that didn't live up to the hype.
