It is always better to clean than not.
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Deoxit makes a noticeable improvement in sonics. More clarity, less grain; subtle, but obvious gain in overall refinement. Do your interconnects also! Take Qtips (not the plastic stick version) and pull the cotton off the ends so that the “stick” is bare, or with only the thinnest layer of cotton left. Dip or spray the ends with Deoxit, stick in the ground flanges of your interconnects’ male RCA connectors and twirl around inside. You’ll be amazed at their dark color afterwards. Then do the same for the inside of the female RCA connectors on your amp. Don’t reuse. Use clean Qtips for each connection. You will hear the difference. |
I personally find more sonic improvements from cleaning and tightening very dirty or loose connections than from fancy cables (past a certain point of quality)> This, though, presumes they are dirty. One effective way to clean them is to insert/remove. For connections without a wiping action Deoxit or cramolin is a good idea. CRC also makes very good cleaners and lubricants/oxi barrier products. So, yes with caveats |
I have my own concoction. It leaves a light conductive film after it’s wiped off. Like most conductive liquids at + or - 50 degrees from ambient temperature it reduces micro arching (noise) and INCREASES the actual surface area of contact. Does the sound improve? Do you like popcorn IN your music or WITH your music.. MAINTENANCE, pays it doesn’t cost. It’s always better to stay out of trouble, than get out of trouble.. Of course it sounds BETTER. Cables and ALL connection require service at some point in their life cycle. Worst offenders are jumper bars on speakers and preamp/amp jumpers.. BUT any connection point from the wall to the jumpers between HIGHS and LOWS at the speaker terminals.. Tube sockets.. LOL oh yea make sure they are drippin’ when you flip the on/off switch.. Use good sense.. Dab and dry with cotton balls and air dry with low air pressure.. BTW Ear muffs on while blowing.. Always.. CLEAN & DRY is good with electricity.. Regards |
Love DeoxIT, in the mid-eighties I bought these little integrated amps made by Cambridge and then soon after they were copied by Acoustic Research. I had a couple sitting in the basement un-used for probably 10 years and when you put signal to them one channel or the other would cutout. I sprayed all the pots and switches with DeoxIT and everything was silky smooth and not a cutout to be heard. You need to clean everything and I'm of the school of thought that all the little things put together add up to great sound. |
Be prepared. When you do it, it will sound different. I bought the entire three part Deoxit kit, and when I was finished, I did not like the way my system sounded for several days. I do still believe in the practice of cleaning with these products, but it does have an initial sonic effect that I don't like. |
there are two types of contact cleaner: contact cleaner or contact cleaner/lubricant. no lubricant for non-moving parts lubricant for circular moving parts like potentiometers. Rockers: nothing if not noisy when in position, there is often foam, felt, dust barriers .... that cleaners might dissolve. avoid compressed air in the rockers for the same reason. Avoid compressed air or chemicals behind glass and other faceplates that have dust barriers, OR, plan on replacing those dust barriers, not too hard. Old type rca jacks, like my McIntosh mx110z Tube Tuner/Preamp, the jacks corrode, you easily get l/r balance issues. You clean them, I did (very fine steel wool and very fine emery cloth) better for a while, but they begin to corrode again. Audio Classics just replaced all my mx110z's rca jacks with new gold plated ones, oh happy day. The old McIntosh rca jacks are very slightly smaller diameter, it is best to get connectors that are tight, or locking connectors. I just bought two of these video cables; six nine's copper (99.9999) https://www.ebay.com/itm/122028614401 peeled em apart, made myself 3 pairs of interconnects. Each pair it's own color locking connector, and just mark both ends of the right side (red permanent marker or tape, anything that won't fall off). My method of marking cables: anything with information (stripe, factory printed info, my mark) is right or positive; no info is left or negative. btw, when making your own long twisted cables, you don't need to keep flipping them over in the same twist direction: just twist and tape together every 9" or so; a few taped joints until tension develops, then twist the other way for a few feet, repeat: much easier. |
https://stabilant.com/NoteList.html Only thing I use and used it on all the avionics in our DHC6 of 35 years. |
I have noticed a difference in my mid level set up using Deoxit Gold G100L, on my speaker cable spades and my interconnects' RCA connections. My audiophile friends with pricey systems all swear by it. Out of curiosity I tried an experiment. I tested my slowish internet speed using the 'm-test ' site https://speed.measurementlab.net/#/ and the issue is with the basic ISP's rental router not the internet service itself. Before I ordered a new router I tried the Deoxit Gold G100L on the connection between the cable and the router -- and download speed increased an average of 44% after performing the tests several times. The results were consistent. To me this further shows me that this stuff improves quality of connections. |
