geoffkait,
"Let’s call them the unemployables and worry warts."
Wrong names.
Perfect Path Solutions Total Contact Mega Review
Spoiler Alert: Total Contact is, for the right person, the greatest bargain in audio tweaks ever. Nothing else comes even close. If- and this is a big if- you are the right sort of person.
This stuff is so good I keep wanting to put it more places and listen to it rather than write about the amazing results. My only real regret so far is not having tried it sooner. Yes I did read all the positive comments. Which I found hard to believe. It is after all “just another contact enhancer”. So let me clear that one up first, in order that others not fall for that one.
Everyone knows, or should know, the importance of cleaning contacts. If you don’t, you can prove it to yourself in like 5 minutes with a little alcohol and a clean cloth. If you don’t notice improved detail and extension stop reading, you need another hobby. That’s what I learned, back around 1990. Then over the next 30 years I must have done this with a dozen to maybe 20 different cleaners and conditioners. All this experience taught me they are all pretty much the same. Which they are. TC however is NOT. So the first part of “for the right person” is being open to the fact technology advances and occasionally really new and transformational technology does come along.
The next thing that kept me skeptical was the combination of cost and quantity. $300 is a lot for just 1.5ml. Yet I just called TC the greatest bargain tweak ever. Something to keep in mind while reading this review: everything mentioned here has been done with only 0.6ml. Less than half, and already enough impact to qualify as the all time greatest tweak. Easily.
Not that this was readily apparent. Not by any means. Like most, my first impression was applying Total Contact to speaker cable spades, RCAs, and power cords. Following directions only a very thin layer was applied, to only the male parts, and to only the areas contact is made. The last 1/3 of the RCA tip, for example. Eager to hear if TC was really as good as everyone says it wasn’t even applied everywhere. Just speakers, RCAs, and power cords. Even so, the improvement from just this minimal amount was greater than any contact enhancer I’ve tried, and by a large margin.
I’m used to these things improving detail and extension, removing a layer of grain or glare, and revealing a bit of inner detail. Some of them like Quicksilver also seem to improve dynamics a bit, although it may just be the noise floor dropping makes it seem that way. Whatever, its not a big improvement. Not like this. TC is deeper, more dimensional, and with an improvement that seems to go beyond the normal meaning of things like detail and dynamics.
But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. This is just the easy low hanging fruit. What most people will do. It gets better.
There’s a double meaning there. It gets better with time- and it also gets better with more.
Next were all the tube pins, including inside my Herron phono stage. Koetsu cartridge pins, and turntable motor controller. Fuse holders. This second stage application basically covered every system connection accessible to normal users willing to remove a cover. Before doing this second stage it was easily noticeable that the sound had improved in the few days since the first initial application. The sound by the time this second stage was done was far, far beyond anything else like this ever.
It was at this point I finally looked close to see how much was left: 1.5 ml! Obviously this was not all done with zero. It must have been filled to 1.51ml or something and I just wasn’t paying enough attention. I sure would from now on!
But this raises another interesting point about TC. It comes with little plastic mixing cups. But the stuff goes so far I couldn’t imagine ever using them. What I do, carefully squeeze until just the tiniest little dome of TC forms at the end of the syringe. Only a smidge of this goes on the brush. This speck gets dabbed around wherever its going. Finally the dabs get brushed out nice and uniformly thin. TC is highly conductive. Do NOT get it where you don’t want it. Do not leave globs anywhere. A headlamp comes in real handy for getting it nice and smooth and thin. Also an artists brush. I bought a natural hair 1/8” shader.
Next up: the panel. This was done, similar to the system, in stages. Stage 3 involved partially pulling the main breaker enough to coat the copper bus bars. Then: all the breaker/bus bar contact points, ends of all wires going into breakers, ends of all wires going into ground, ends of all wires going into neutral, and the ground and neutral bus bars were coated with TC providing a thin continuous coating across all connections on these bus bars. This used about 0.2ml.
My system runs 220v to a Swiss Audio Consulting silver step down transformer just below the room, leaving only a short 5 ft at 110v to the room. This transformer is a roughly 7” cube. It lives in a 2” thick MDF box in the crawl space under the house. Between the box and the 4 ga wire and being under the house its been,…. 20 years at least since I had a look in there. Its a hassle, okay? But by now I know for sure this will be worth the trouble.
The transformer comes out and into the shop. The bolts holding the plates come out and get treated. The plates get a thin coat all around the outside. The terminals and wires all get cleaned and coated. The whole thing goes back together. The wire connecting it to the dedicated ground gets treated. The ground rod gets cleaned and treated.
Back in the listening room my Frankenstein Medusa power conditioner gets opened up. The Tesla MPC power transformers get treated. All the wires connecting to the various audiophile outlets. Now finally we are up to where I am now, with still 0.6ml left to go!
How does it sound? Freaking insane. My Teaser post the other day was written after a couple amazing tracks. We can however do a whole lot better than that. Not all audiophiles will be able to afford this measurement tool. But for those who can it can be highly revealing. You may not always care for the readings it generates. They must however at all times be respected! I am of course referring to The Wife.
The Wife does not spend much time listening to music. The Wife would rather watch movies. Preferably while surrounded with numerous plates and cups to snack and sip from in a near constant display of kinetic motion aka nervous energy. The Wife readings are highly variable, ranging from, “what did you get now?” And “how much?” to “it sounds completely different” which happens a lot and requires visual confirmation- with smile good, frown bad. In other words The Wife readings are often nonverbal. When The Wife stops eating, leans forward, and just sits there in rapt attention, ice cream melting in her lap, that’s when you know The Wife meter is pegged.
Which actually happened a few nights ago. BEFORE Panel Stage 3. BEFORE the transformers. BEFORE all this stuff even has had time to mature. Which matters because yes it does indeed improve with time.
What’s it like right now? Glad you asked.
Where to start? Presentation of the characteristic tone and harmonic structure of individual instruments is remarkable. Many of the tracks on Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints are an aural tapestry of many different unusual percussion instruments. With lesser systems it can all sound like one. With mine before TC I could hear quite a few. Now with TC not only is each individual instrument clear, its easy to hear its not just a percussion there’s also a tone with real body along with it, and its in its own acoustical space, and it doesn’t even sound the same each time. I mean you can tell when its hit a little harder or differently. Amazing.
Dynamics. Its possible to go quite a while thinking everything is pretty normal. Until some solo explodes out of nowhere and you have to keep telling yourself its the same 50 watt amp, it only sounds like 500. Some things like a soaring Santana guitar note have such crystalline clarity its almost searing, except for the edge that would be there with anything else so high energy. How this happens- the combination of extreme hard edge without the hard edge part- is beyond me.
Presence. You know how you instinctively know the difference between something in your room vibrating vs something like cymbals on the recording making the same sound? TC, you got me. I actually thought it was something in my room. It wasn’t. Damn.
Resolution. Many recordings sound really good and clear, until it gets loud and more and more voices and instruments come in and it reaches a point where it all sort of congeals. Its like, you can tell they’re all there, just not as individually distinct as when they were playing one by one. Well, now it is almost comical how easy it is to follow anything and everything all the time no matter how many or how loud. Used to think this was recording quality. In part it is. My Hot Stampers stand out impressive as ever. The real surprise is how many totally average records now sound crazy good.
Can’t stress this enough. There’s plenty of stuff out there that people will say provides greater detail and resolution. Almost always the next thing after that is how they know this because the edgy ear graters really grate the ears, or its liquid but not so liquid the screechy bad isn’t still grating, or whatever. With TC I have yet to find the record that doesn’t just plain sound way better. Bruce Springsteen, Exhibit A in the Museum of Great Music Badly Recorded, the Ghost of Tom Joad is now an incredibly compelling experience. Unbelievable.
I could go on. And on. Words. Don’t do it justice.
Bear in mind, Total Contact is by all accounts one of those things that gets quite a bit better over the first month or two. Word is, significantly. This right now is at most three weeks since the first little bit applied to part of my system, to less than three days since the most recent application to transformers.
Still, this stuff is so good I just didn’t want to wait. Even as it stands right now, having used only about half the tube and most of that with less than a week to burn in, the improvement from application of Total Contact is roughly comparable to the improvements I’ve gotten from going to a Herron phono stage, Synergistic CTS speaker cable, Atmosphere interconnect, or Koetsu cartridge. Those were all multi-thousand dollar upgrades. This is with half a $300 tube of TC.
Those things however are all simply bought and connected. TC is quite a bit more hands-on labor intensive. A lot of people simply will not be comfortable using this where it will do the most good. Or may not be creative enough to think of all the places it can be used. Or have the initiative and desire to try and see. Which is why the long review. Its not a question of is this a great tweak. It is an awesome tweak! Its a question of are you the right sort of person to appreciate and use and get the most out of it?
If you are, then Total Contact is the greatest bargain in audio tweaks, ever.
This stuff is so good I keep wanting to put it more places and listen to it rather than write about the amazing results. My only real regret so far is not having tried it sooner. Yes I did read all the positive comments. Which I found hard to believe. It is after all “just another contact enhancer”. So let me clear that one up first, in order that others not fall for that one.
Everyone knows, or should know, the importance of cleaning contacts. If you don’t, you can prove it to yourself in like 5 minutes with a little alcohol and a clean cloth. If you don’t notice improved detail and extension stop reading, you need another hobby. That’s what I learned, back around 1990. Then over the next 30 years I must have done this with a dozen to maybe 20 different cleaners and conditioners. All this experience taught me they are all pretty much the same. Which they are. TC however is NOT. So the first part of “for the right person” is being open to the fact technology advances and occasionally really new and transformational technology does come along.
The next thing that kept me skeptical was the combination of cost and quantity. $300 is a lot for just 1.5ml. Yet I just called TC the greatest bargain tweak ever. Something to keep in mind while reading this review: everything mentioned here has been done with only 0.6ml. Less than half, and already enough impact to qualify as the all time greatest tweak. Easily.
Not that this was readily apparent. Not by any means. Like most, my first impression was applying Total Contact to speaker cable spades, RCAs, and power cords. Following directions only a very thin layer was applied, to only the male parts, and to only the areas contact is made. The last 1/3 of the RCA tip, for example. Eager to hear if TC was really as good as everyone says it wasn’t even applied everywhere. Just speakers, RCAs, and power cords. Even so, the improvement from just this minimal amount was greater than any contact enhancer I’ve tried, and by a large margin.
I’m used to these things improving detail and extension, removing a layer of grain or glare, and revealing a bit of inner detail. Some of them like Quicksilver also seem to improve dynamics a bit, although it may just be the noise floor dropping makes it seem that way. Whatever, its not a big improvement. Not like this. TC is deeper, more dimensional, and with an improvement that seems to go beyond the normal meaning of things like detail and dynamics.
But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. This is just the easy low hanging fruit. What most people will do. It gets better.
There’s a double meaning there. It gets better with time- and it also gets better with more.
Next were all the tube pins, including inside my Herron phono stage. Koetsu cartridge pins, and turntable motor controller. Fuse holders. This second stage application basically covered every system connection accessible to normal users willing to remove a cover. Before doing this second stage it was easily noticeable that the sound had improved in the few days since the first initial application. The sound by the time this second stage was done was far, far beyond anything else like this ever.
It was at this point I finally looked close to see how much was left: 1.5 ml! Obviously this was not all done with zero. It must have been filled to 1.51ml or something and I just wasn’t paying enough attention. I sure would from now on!
But this raises another interesting point about TC. It comes with little plastic mixing cups. But the stuff goes so far I couldn’t imagine ever using them. What I do, carefully squeeze until just the tiniest little dome of TC forms at the end of the syringe. Only a smidge of this goes on the brush. This speck gets dabbed around wherever its going. Finally the dabs get brushed out nice and uniformly thin. TC is highly conductive. Do NOT get it where you don’t want it. Do not leave globs anywhere. A headlamp comes in real handy for getting it nice and smooth and thin. Also an artists brush. I bought a natural hair 1/8” shader.
Next up: the panel. This was done, similar to the system, in stages. Stage 3 involved partially pulling the main breaker enough to coat the copper bus bars. Then: all the breaker/bus bar contact points, ends of all wires going into breakers, ends of all wires going into ground, ends of all wires going into neutral, and the ground and neutral bus bars were coated with TC providing a thin continuous coating across all connections on these bus bars. This used about 0.2ml.
My system runs 220v to a Swiss Audio Consulting silver step down transformer just below the room, leaving only a short 5 ft at 110v to the room. This transformer is a roughly 7” cube. It lives in a 2” thick MDF box in the crawl space under the house. Between the box and the 4 ga wire and being under the house its been,…. 20 years at least since I had a look in there. Its a hassle, okay? But by now I know for sure this will be worth the trouble.
The transformer comes out and into the shop. The bolts holding the plates come out and get treated. The plates get a thin coat all around the outside. The terminals and wires all get cleaned and coated. The whole thing goes back together. The wire connecting it to the dedicated ground gets treated. The ground rod gets cleaned and treated.
Back in the listening room my Frankenstein Medusa power conditioner gets opened up. The Tesla MPC power transformers get treated. All the wires connecting to the various audiophile outlets. Now finally we are up to where I am now, with still 0.6ml left to go!
How does it sound? Freaking insane. My Teaser post the other day was written after a couple amazing tracks. We can however do a whole lot better than that. Not all audiophiles will be able to afford this measurement tool. But for those who can it can be highly revealing. You may not always care for the readings it generates. They must however at all times be respected! I am of course referring to The Wife.
The Wife does not spend much time listening to music. The Wife would rather watch movies. Preferably while surrounded with numerous plates and cups to snack and sip from in a near constant display of kinetic motion aka nervous energy. The Wife readings are highly variable, ranging from, “what did you get now?” And “how much?” to “it sounds completely different” which happens a lot and requires visual confirmation- with smile good, frown bad. In other words The Wife readings are often nonverbal. When The Wife stops eating, leans forward, and just sits there in rapt attention, ice cream melting in her lap, that’s when you know The Wife meter is pegged.
Which actually happened a few nights ago. BEFORE Panel Stage 3. BEFORE the transformers. BEFORE all this stuff even has had time to mature. Which matters because yes it does indeed improve with time.
What’s it like right now? Glad you asked.
Where to start? Presentation of the characteristic tone and harmonic structure of individual instruments is remarkable. Many of the tracks on Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints are an aural tapestry of many different unusual percussion instruments. With lesser systems it can all sound like one. With mine before TC I could hear quite a few. Now with TC not only is each individual instrument clear, its easy to hear its not just a percussion there’s also a tone with real body along with it, and its in its own acoustical space, and it doesn’t even sound the same each time. I mean you can tell when its hit a little harder or differently. Amazing.
Dynamics. Its possible to go quite a while thinking everything is pretty normal. Until some solo explodes out of nowhere and you have to keep telling yourself its the same 50 watt amp, it only sounds like 500. Some things like a soaring Santana guitar note have such crystalline clarity its almost searing, except for the edge that would be there with anything else so high energy. How this happens- the combination of extreme hard edge without the hard edge part- is beyond me.
Presence. You know how you instinctively know the difference between something in your room vibrating vs something like cymbals on the recording making the same sound? TC, you got me. I actually thought it was something in my room. It wasn’t. Damn.
Resolution. Many recordings sound really good and clear, until it gets loud and more and more voices and instruments come in and it reaches a point where it all sort of congeals. Its like, you can tell they’re all there, just not as individually distinct as when they were playing one by one. Well, now it is almost comical how easy it is to follow anything and everything all the time no matter how many or how loud. Used to think this was recording quality. In part it is. My Hot Stampers stand out impressive as ever. The real surprise is how many totally average records now sound crazy good.
Can’t stress this enough. There’s plenty of stuff out there that people will say provides greater detail and resolution. Almost always the next thing after that is how they know this because the edgy ear graters really grate the ears, or its liquid but not so liquid the screechy bad isn’t still grating, or whatever. With TC I have yet to find the record that doesn’t just plain sound way better. Bruce Springsteen, Exhibit A in the Museum of Great Music Badly Recorded, the Ghost of Tom Joad is now an incredibly compelling experience. Unbelievable.
I could go on. And on. Words. Don’t do it justice.
Bear in mind, Total Contact is by all accounts one of those things that gets quite a bit better over the first month or two. Word is, significantly. This right now is at most three weeks since the first little bit applied to part of my system, to less than three days since the most recent application to transformers.
Still, this stuff is so good I just didn’t want to wait. Even as it stands right now, having used only about half the tube and most of that with less than a week to burn in, the improvement from application of Total Contact is roughly comparable to the improvements I’ve gotten from going to a Herron phono stage, Synergistic CTS speaker cable, Atmosphere interconnect, or Koetsu cartridge. Those were all multi-thousand dollar upgrades. This is with half a $300 tube of TC.
Those things however are all simply bought and connected. TC is quite a bit more hands-on labor intensive. A lot of people simply will not be comfortable using this where it will do the most good. Or may not be creative enough to think of all the places it can be used. Or have the initiative and desire to try and see. Which is why the long review. Its not a question of is this a great tweak. It is an awesome tweak! Its a question of are you the right sort of person to appreciate and use and get the most out of it?
If you are, then Total Contact is the greatest bargain in audio tweaks, ever.
150 responses Add your response
| Post removed |
Really not sure what got Mapman so worked up here? Even though I do not and have not posTed quite so effusively as Frank and Miller about PPT, the effects of their products are irrefutable in my system to my ears. And thats it really, could not care less if the non believers prefer to stay that way, thats fine. To each their own and my own consists of TC, The Gate, Omega mats and plus mats and E-Cards. Now go and have fun! |
No need to apologize Frank. The best thing this site could do is add a tool so posters could filter who can and cannot contribute to a thread. Or even better whose posts they can and cannot see. Then it would be funny how fast a certain small group would wind up talking to themselves. (Which happens a lot anyway!) Meantime I vacillate between ignoring and skewering. Leaning more and more towards ignoring. Yeah. Maybe at least try it a while and see. Mahgister, what is your native language? Because its obviously not English! Which makes it all the more impressive when you write something as brilliant as this: Past some threshold, music is the only world we live in, and we forget about dreamed audio system (I will buy it anyway if I can for sure! :) ) or about the actual upgrading materials or tweaks... It is my case with a very modest cost system... The more difficult quality to be gained were : natural timbre of voices and instruments, and immersing encompassing holographic 3-d imaging in nearfield listening and in regular field listening with disappearance of the speakers when music fills my little room... Pure gold. Love reading your comments. Keep em coming. |
Would much rather have a filter for who can post. Would never have to read any of your comments... And honestly, if you don’t like it/don’t agree with the thread then why the hell do you read it? Oh yeh, you’re saving us... I’ve read what a number of people have said, and as a consequence have some of the products. I’m grateful they start posts on such topics. Thankful for their knowledge, observations and opinions (unlike yours which I unilaterally ignore). Getting these products was a brilliant move btw. Have never enjoyed my system and my music as much as I am currently. So, thank you! |
jerrybj: Well said, sir! It's always good when you discover something great thanks to someone else's recommendations; but, what is even better is being the person making the recommendation that someone takes and runs with it. In other words;..."It's better to give than receive." I too would have never looked into the PPT products without having read the interesting comments in various threads in this forum; so, thanks for that! |
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Just finished several hours working on the Audio Consulting pure silver isolation transformer. This little beauty is hardwired inside my Medusa power center. For years it was used on the one outlet that used to go to my Oppo player. But with that outlet now used for my 2 Dayton subwoofer amps its been used on the 2 Tesla MPCs that power the Active Shielding on the CTS speaker cables. Active Shielding makes a huge difference. Michael Spallone modified all mine with better caps, diodes, and point to point wiring. Another huge improvement. With the AC transformer its even better. Unfortunately that transformer uses hair thin wire. We're talking wire so thin you have to be real careful soldering not to melt the wire. I got it used and apparently the guy before me left a bad joint. Had to open the power center up, pull the transformer and track down the fault. So of course had the meter out to test before it goes back in. 128.5V out the secondary. Well now that's interesting. Because there's a step I left out. The step where it tested 128.0V before applying Total Contact. Same thin film coat like on everything else, same as on the Audio Consulting step down transformer, except of course a lot less this being such a small transformer. Applied all around the iron core and windings. Wasn't expecting this but it did measure higher voltage after Total Contact. 128 vs 128.5 Not a lot. But still.... Oh and hasten to add, not reporting this because it was higher. If it was lower, would report that just the same. Not saying higher accounts for anything. I'm like Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes, "I don't care!" Transformer back in place, system powered up, and I was not looking forward to this. Why? Because doing this requires shutting down the whole system, including amps I almost never turn off. It requires disconnecting all the power cords, moving interconnects and speaker cables, not to mention all the wires in the power center, and every one of these things sounds worse and takes a while to come back after being moved around like that. So the XLO demag tracks go on, and the system warms up for an hour or so. Even so, John Stewart Punch the Big Guy, its just not supposed to sound this good. Especially since last night, was one of those special nights when for whatever reason everything just sounds way better than ever before. Which usually means you don't get that again for a while. Never the next day. For sure not in the afternoon. Certainly not so soon after making changes. Unless the changes are something special. Which Total Contact on your Active Shielding transformer sure seems to be. Yes. Yes indeed. It is. |
Okay so now this is even more surprising. One of the really nice surprises with this stuff is every once in a while Krissy just throws something in there for you. So I got these little gold caps for unused RCAs. No big, right? All kinds of em out there. There's no place left to put them on my amp, and the Herron is full too. That just leaves the Oppo. Which with digital, video, and whatever multi-channel whatever, 6 altogether. Which the Oppo being digital is good for playing demagnetizing tracks and that's about it. So no way its gonna make any difference. So I just stuck em on there and put a side on. Without listening first. Because no way its gonna matter. Wrong. Made enough difference it was obvious even without A/B'ing the same thing. Just to be sure I got up and removed just two, one from the digital out, the other video out. Sound goes flat and hard. Put it back. Deep and liquid. Crystal clear. Massive harmonic rightness. Again, the Oppo is not even being used. This is the Miller Carbon playing. The Oppo is just sitting there connected, turned on, but not selected. How it matters is something I'm figuring out but not quite ready to write about just yet. |
@sonicjoy, You need to get that Sil-Clear off as soon as possible dude. I'll never use that stuff again! .................................................................... @millercarbon, I've been following all of the PPT threads and actually have 2 Omega + E Mats in side my breaker box. Regarding the TC, and how it's applied. I noticed on the other review, you stated that the instructions say to just treat the inner third of the male connectors. I'm wondering why? Also, do not treat the female contacts. Again, I'm wondering why? Others have stated that after treating and installing, to wait for a time until the TC dries before unplugging. Wouldn't it be better to wait after treating for TC to dry, then insert? I ask these questions in order to be prepared when I finally order some. |
Hey Miller I bought an Oppo 105 about 8-10 years ago (whenever they first came out) strictly for DVD-A and SACDs. I was using a Pioneer PD 65 as a transport to various dac/pres. About 1.5 years ago, it finally died. While in search of a replacement I was forced to listen to the 105 for red books, and was disappointed. While surfing E-baye I came across 105 IEC replacements and ordered a Furutech Rhodium with pure silver jumper to the power supply board. I was amazed. Much like this one, it too was ~ $200 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-supply-IEC-9999-sterling-silver-cable-For-OPPO-BDP-93-103-105-UDP-203... While installing it I realized what a POS the OEM power supply was. Knowing what a huge improvement upgrading PSs can be, I bought a Linear Power Supply module. much like this one, but prices can go over $300 https://www.ebay.com/itm/OPPO-UDP-105-Lossless-Dedicated-Linear-Power-Supply-Board-Module-Modified-U... I finally bought a Marantz HD CD 1 to use as a transport and as a backup. I never use it anymore as the 105 V V C direct XLRs to my Ric Schultz EVS 1200 eliminates a preamp/dac, sounds fantastic on SACD/DVD-As, and really good on red books, when well recorded hth |
@tweak1, What does your last post have to do with this topic? IMO, should have been a PM. My experience with Sil-Clear is long. Here’s one story....my current SMc Audio amp was purchased by me as an upgraded DNA-225 to Platinum at that time. Upon listening I was underwhelmed.......dark, no dynamics.... ( I already owned a stock DNA-225) I took off the cover and noticed the previous owner had installed upgraded fuses. I took one out and noticed a coating. After cleaning all of the fuse holder contacts and fuses, fired it back up and it was a completely different amp. I called the previous owner with my observations and he said "I liked it like that". Also the plating had started to deteriorate on the fuse holder contacts. I personally blame the Sil-Clear for that as well. |
No doubt the paste is an easy best tweak for the $ I have ever experienced. My system would not sound nearly as good as it currently does without this product. Fact is my system could not possibly sound this good without this product. It is essential to me and my music. I have no problem confidently saying these Perfect Path Audio products elevated the performance and enjoyment of my system to a level far beyond what all other tweaks managed to do. No other way or means, I am aware of, for my current gear and system to sound this good. Let’s just say it’s a powerful and legal performance enhancing audio drug. It turns your gear into something beyond what they are sonically capable of doing alone or with other tweaks. My experience Agoners. |
slaw: Regarding the TC, and how it's applied. I noticed on the other review, you stated that the instructions say to just treat the inner third of the male connectors. I'm wondering why? Also, do not treat the female contacts. Again, I'm wondering why? Mostly its to avoid risk of a short. TC is highly conductive. Applying to the insides of things its just too hard to do without risk of leaving some where you don't want it. Also if there's too much then the act of plugging could scrape some into a blob and who knows where that might go over time? A thin coat is all you need or want. Others have stated that after treating and installing, to wait for a time until the TC dries before unplugging. Wouldn't it be better to wait after treating for TC to dry, then insert? Maybe. But it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that dries into a hard coating like paint. Its more like a substance suspended in liquid to help spread it around. The liquid dries leaving the substance behind. Even when dry all that means is the carrier is gone. The gray substance rubs right off. Or maybe it just dries real slow and I've never waited long enough. But in that case its days, and do you really want to wait days?? |
Probably because there is no benefit. Let's say for the sake of argument waiting until its dried the film is harder and less likely to be scraped out of the way being plugged in. In that case then you would have a uniform thin film everywhere just like before it was plugged in. As opposed to if its plugged in right away, some of the film gets pushed along and accumulates along the contact edge. Well, isn't that what you want? More in the contact area? Hard to see the point of waiting. |
IMO you just proved my point without realizing it. Pushing in a just treated connector is certain to have some scraped off in it's raw form. Pushing in a dried/treated connector is less likely to have the TC scraped off...if what we're reading is correct. Dried, less likely to cause harm + more likely to have increased TC contact. This is really common sense. |
One objective of the contact enhancer is to fill in all the micro crevasses and holes in both the female and male portions of the plug, so my reasoning is to assemble the parts whilst the product is still in paste form. If you let it dry first it won’t be able to fill in the crevasses and holes of the female part, and won’t be as effective in preventing micro arcing. Filling male and female parts increases the effective conductive surface area significantly. Just be careful not to go too far down the male prongs. Paint only the male part to avoid overdoing it. Ditto with pins of vacuum tubes. If you don’t drink coffee prior to attempting this, it’s also possible to treat the teeny tiny little pins in HDMI cables, plus other hard to get at connectors. |
Right. One day while working on this I got a little insight, literally, into this. Usually remember to flip the main breaker to the whole panel before putting a socket wrench to it but this one time.... Very interesting what happened. Tiny little blue arcs dancing around and along the surfaces of the socket and bus bar. Lots and lots of electrons under pressure (voltage) just looking for somewhere to go. Most stay nestled in the nice metal, but enough go sparking out into the nitrogen and other molecules nearby, which hold onto them briefly until being unstable let go and there’s your sparks of light. Hard looking at it not to think the same thing isn’t happening, only on a very micro scale, in the tiny little crags and crannies between two metal connectors. Surely all those little sparks smear the signal, this happens all the time and with every connection, as implied by the improvement we hear using Total Contact. |
slaw ... I’ve always pasted connections and reinserted them immediately with no problems at all. The improvement in sound continues for around eight weeks. So, I see no advantage to pasting parts and then letting them sit for eight weeks to cure completely before reinserting. Frank |
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I used my DVD player for the first time in awhile yesterday. Picture was not good. Turns out it was a bad contact with the video wire. I unplugged the connection and reconnected it firmly. Picture is beautiful. Lush colors and crystal clear. Best tweak ever! The relevant point for this thread is if you don’t first merely reseat or redo a connection you cannot know how much difference after applying a product like total contact is due to the product or just a new better connection nothing applied. Always a good idea to redo connections between components periodically for best results. The same applies to fuses. |
OP paragraph three: Everyone knows, or should know, the importance of cleaning contacts. If you don’t, you can prove it to yourself in like 5 minutes with a little alcohol and a clean cloth. If you don’t notice improved detail and extension stop reading, you need another hobby. That’s what I learned, back around 1990. Then over the next 30 years I must have done this with a dozen to maybe 20 different cleaners and conditioners. All this experience taught me they are all pretty much the same. Which they are. TC however is NOT. So the first part of “for the right person” is being open to the fact technology advances and occasionally really new and transformational technology does come along. |
Hey Miller. Thanks for sharing your experience with the TC. I have also noted significant improvement with the TC and Mats, both new and old. I posted in another thread about setting up my electrical system and have ordered more paste. Is it important to paste ALL the connections in the breaker box or just those supplying the line that the audio equipment is on? Is there a big difference if only the line to the audio is pasted? I have plastic outlet boxes that I am going to paste inside and out. How did you paste the receptacle itself? Leon |
Is it important to paste ALL the connections in the breaker box or just those supplying the line that the audio equipment is on? The more the better. Mine was done in stages. The improvement doing the neutral and ground wires was at least as big as the hot ones. A factor seems to be an efficient clean path to ground helps drain noise. Or whatever. Do em all. Is there a big difference if only the line to the audio is pasted? Well its funny. Its kind of like the improvement is about the same no matter which line you do. It would be interesting if someone new would do all their lines EXCEPT the system just to see. It sure seems to me like it doesn’t matter which line you do. Which seems odd at first glance. Because its called Total Contact everyone thinks of it as a contact enhancer. When it clearly is much more than that. I mean where is the contact pasting the inside of a plastic outlet box? Clearly more is going on. I have a pretty good idea but not yet. Critics triggered enough already. I have plastic outlet boxes that I am going to paste inside and out. How did you paste the receptacle itself? Haven’t done that yet. Inside the cover plate would be a lot easier and probably about as good. Although as always, the more the better! I would think the first box to do would be the panel. That is after all where the power is, and all the PPS stuff seems to work best where there’s the most power. Which fits with the idea I have that will trigger the critics. More. If that’s even possible. |
PPT should find inspiration in Teo Audio's liquid cables or Cerious Technologies' graphene powder to incorporate Total Contact into interconnects and power cords. Another idea is to create miniature E Cards or E Mats that fit inside power plug enclosures or something that can be wrapped around the plug and held in place by a rubber band. (I've seen this tweak done with EMI sheets) |
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Just spent the better part of the day pasting speakers and phono stage. Talon Khorus, weigh about 150 lbs, the base fastens with 4 great big lag bolts, and so you have to lay them down on their sides to get it off. Its a chore. But I did it before when they sent me the X series crossovers, so at least I know what I'm getting into. Pasted the chokes and caps, all the solder joints (its all hard wired) and the inside of the terminal mounting plate. Strapped an E-card to the old potted crossover glued directly above the new one, double-checked everything and closed it up. Now the hard part, getting them back where they belong. Having spent hours and hours getting them perfectly placed many years ago this is not something to be left to chance. The tape measure has 3 marks for the correct distance from the side and front walls to the 3 corners that define speaker location. So nobody gets to say it sounds better because the speaker position is better. The speaker position is exactly the same. Exactly. Next up, the Herron. Previously, all connections including fuse holder and tube pins had been done a few weeks ago. Now understanding better how TC works, this time a lot more. Covered the transformer, the ends of all the caps, resistor bodies, and a lot of solder joints, the ones I can safely get at. Such a fine (and expensive) piece of kit has me even more conservative than usual. Heh. Back it goes, and all the wires back up on their perches, and lo it powers up, nothing burned out, yay! Oh and by the way, coating all this stuff used up a mere 0.2 ml. Now its earlier than I usually listen. The system never sounds very good right away. Even warmed up the first few minutes are a please bear with us kind of a thing. Maybe the Koetsu needs that long to loosen up. Wires that were moved around need to settle back in. Whatever. Point is I never expect much right away. Well, Total Contact it turns out does not care much for my expectations. Not when you use this much anyway. My old standby Al Stewart goes on and Lord Granville never sounded better. Freaking amazing. And its not just that its cleaner and more dynamic with sounds exploding in the air, what's even better is ordinary stuff like piano that never seemed very well recorded now has such you are there realism, tonal complexity and presence it just sucks you right in. What I think Krissy means by emotional connection. Call it what you like. Lotta work. Totally worth the effort. |