2. cables
  3. 169308-132470

Are you also leaving free (virtually) performance on the table?

Recently I drove up to meet millercarbon and a few other audiophiles, we had a great time. Listened to vinyl, digital and reel to reel between the two venues we were fortunate enough to be invited to. I also invited Jeff Smith from Silversmith Audio, as I purchased a pair of his 8 foot Fidelium speaker cables to listen to. Jeff it turns out, is a top bloke (as we say in Australia), and he came and also introduced his new interconnects that are under development, both XLR and RCA.

Now, I was so impressed with the Fidelium speaker cables I posted them to Australia for Mike Lenehan to hear for the first time (he was formerly my employer and still a good friend). We discussed what we were hearing from the cables, DCR was measured and we differed in one area of the discussion.

It was then that Mike asked me, how long has it been since I'd cleaned the terminals in my system?
Hmmmm
My mind started to recount the impressive journey half way around the globe, across Texas, across the Western states of the US. And the truth of it came into realisation, I'd moved around the World, moved from a rental to a home I purchased, compared them to other speakers in Dallas, taken them to Chuxpona 21. During that 4 years since I built them, I'd never actually with any real effort made an attempt to clean any of my terminals.

I asked my wife where that jewellery cleaner she has is? I got a napkin, and as soon as I wiped across the solid copper speaker I could see the duller layer of oxidised copper turn shiny and beautiful lustre presented itself to me. Then I removed both plastic nut assemblies from the ETI speaker terminals and the same (slightly different hue) beautiful lustre revealed itself to me, hidden by four years of oversight and thoughtlessness. I cleaned the other end of the speaker wires at the amplifier, but not the amplifier terminals (which will require entirely removing the 90+lb amplifier to get at them) and turned power back on and fired it up.

Anyone who's ever been foolish to allow such gross oversight and neglect to occur, will know first hand just how much performance is left on the table. The four years of slow degradation, of my slowly over time, having the sound degrade unrecognized over time, was undone in minutes. As I listened to the now unveiled performance of my system, I recalled all that I'd missed out on, the comparisons to other speakers, and the fact I'd ignorantly hobbled my gear, my investment by not doing such a simple thing. How many times I'd dusted and cleaned the outside to look great, never dealing with this?!!!

I currently don't have my prized Fidelium speaker cables, they are in Australia, with my mate Mike. And now I realise, that I still haven't really heard what they can do to my system.

Are any of you reading this, leaving sonic performance on the table because it's been a while since you cleaned the connectors?

Some questions I have now. I know that contact enhancers have great reviews, do they protect against oxidisation?
I used a jewelery cleaning solution to deoxidise terminals, has anyone actually used a proper ultra high frequency jewellery cleaner machine for the task? Probably overkill?
There's obviously threads on this, would anyone reading this lead me to possibly the greatest thread with information in it on Agon?






128x128rixthetrick

Showing 2 responses by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
You can clean with anything. After years accumulating grime vigorous rubbing with a clean cloth will be an improvement. Alcohol is okay but will only remove what it can dissolve, which is not everything. Xylene (fingernail polish remover, basically), toluene, are better but harsh. Many metal polishes are quite good but will often require a second cleaning with alcohol to remove some of what they leave behind. Flitz is another one. Then there are the zillions of products marketed as contact cleaners and conditioners. In regularly cleaning all my contacts in the whole system over the years I tried way more than I can remember. Basically when it is clean it is clean, and it doesn't matter much how it got that way.  

Once clean, that is where the fun begins. Conditioners were until recently all about slowing oxidation without harming conductivity too much. I tried a whole slew of those as well. The one standout in the crowd was Tim's Perfect Path Solutions Total Contact. TC was a game-changer. Far more than a contact conditioner it does way more than just improve conductivity. Now off the market the next one up is NPS1260.   

I haven't directly compared and frankly feel no need since TC is so good and I have a stash. But I'm getting some sent my way as payback for some system building help so hopefully able to have something on NPS1260 before too much longer.



millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
I did this once or twice a year, every year, from beginning in the mid 90's until the last year or two since using Total Contact. There's a reminder people are sick and tired of seeing where I recommend people read through all my posts. There you will find mentioned over and over again the simplest thing you can do is clean everything that comes in contact with everything else. I still recommend cleaning as one of the better freebies, second only to speaker placement but right up there with VTA.   

Seriously. The part about reading the history I mean. Amazon sells Robert Harley's The Compete Guide to High End Audio for a pretty penny. My posts are free. Satisfaction guaranteed, or double your money back!
More to discover