jafreeman-Yes, I'm sadly aware of what's happened to Krissy. It's a real pickle as she put it. I still have plenty of TC having just ordering it and the gate 3 weeks ago. I will for sure paste all new electrical connections but will hold off pasting breaker doors until I have everything else in place. Thanks for mentioning it though. I for sure will post pics once up and running. Thanks for the interest. Leon
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
Orthomead, I have two E+ mats under each mono block amp, two on top of my CD player, two on top of my transformer. Original mats are under Maggie speakers. The E+ mats work well anywhere, but it is said they work better around higher currents. Doubling them up! I have an interesting story about that. When I first got my E-Mats I was excited and in a hurry. Opened the package, sat them down on the closest handy surface- one of my rear subs. Still in the silver packaging. Put some music on and was not expecting anything because after all they are way off in the back corner and still inside the package. Even so the music was a little better. But then some low bass came in and WHAM holy crap WTF!?! How the....? Well unlikely as it sounds it had to be the E-Mats so I got up and moved them and sure enough. Now there's just no way all that bass came from just that one sub. Because I have added and removed just one sub, and even two, and not heard anything like that much difference. So for sure they are additive, and they definitely do work at a distance. |
To put it a little more succinctly I would not (rpt not) even consider listening to a system that doesn’t have some level of tweaks. I mean, come on! Let’s get real! One must draw a line in the sand somewhere. What is a good level of tweaks, you ask? Well, at a minimum isolation for the front end, damping for walls and glass windows and sliding doors, some kind of acoustic resonators, take your pick, Schumann wave resonators if you’re not too chicken 🐔 Some PWB foils and cream wouldn’t kill you, would it? Let’s try to get the show on the road. When the still sea conspires an armor And her sullen and aborted Currents breed tiny monsters True sailing is dead Awkward instant And the first animal is jettisoned Legs furiously pumping Their stiff green gallop And heads bob up Poise, delicate, pause, consent In mute nostril agony Carefully refined and sealed over |
Orthomead, I have two E+ mats under each mono block amp, two on top of my CD player, two on top of my transformer. Original mats are under Maggie speakers. The E+ mats work well anywhere, but it is said they work better around higher currents. By the way, go easy on your supply of paste. It appears there won’t be anymore available--see the last page of the "New Omega E Mat" thread in the "Misc" category, ie, Oregon Papa’s notice. Looking forward to seeing photos of your new room and virtual system. |
Tweaks rule.I think Millercarbon is right about that...I will only repeat the same thing in my own way : Tweaks rules way more than we think... I just want to say that when we speaks about "tweaks" people think most of the times about something that accompany marginally the efficiency of their audio system, a tweak being something that increase what is already there... 1-But is the controlled of the mechanical embeddings of an audio system, 2-The varied acoustical treatment of our room, 3-The cleaning of all the electrical grid of a house and of the gear itself, rightly done and implemented, are only some tweaks added to the Audio system for a slightly better audio experience? Absolutely not at all...The methods pertaining to these 3 embeddings TRANSFORM COMPLETELY the audio system, at any price, and does not only increase slightly a S.Q already there by virtue of the electronic component quality by itself. No I will repeat it: it transform it completely. Perhaps there is exception to this rule, but most of the times this rule apply, and I dont know any exception... The high quality and cost of our electronic components sometimes creates this illusion, that they are almost all that is necessary to live the peak sound quality experience...Buy and right out of the box you have it....And more the price is higher, more easy it is to believe that... In fact the audiophile peak potential experience, given electronic components on par relatively with one another( a 50 dollars amplifier do not compare to a 10,000 dollars one, but perhaps a 1000 one ) is almost completely defined, not with one magical tweak, nor with some disparate tweaks, but with a systematic approach pertaining to these 3 qualitatively different embeddings fields.... Tweaks are important more than we think, but we need a method addressing the complementarities between all these 3 fields, and we need more than one product or tweak for that, and more than many disparate tweaks... |
Jafreeman- The room is fully drywalled and needs finishing. I have pasted all parts of the outlet boxes and await the installation of the SR blue outlets which I will also paste along with all connections on the subpanel and main breaker box. I'm thinking about 6 weeks to actual move in and music. Thanks for asking. Where did you place your 8 mats? |
So I subscribe the notion that tweaks are not always necessary.Right. But then music itself is not always necessary.Tweaks only become necessary when the goal is the very best sound possible for the money. In that case its easy to demonstrate and prove the right tweaks are much more cost effective than a component upgrade. I have many tweaks to address power and some acoustical deficiencies in my system which does not have SOTA components but relatively good ones. As one poster previously stated, better (and usually cheaper) to work with the equipment one has and tweak it to its best sound. Right. To which I would add: always better, always cheaper. Because, let us assume for the sake of argument someone has the most superb system in the world. All the latest greatest everything. Spared no expense. Five mill, not counting the architect. Whatever. Does it have Cones? No? So for $60 it gets even better. Does it have an Orange Fuse? No? So for $160 it gets even better. Does it have HFT? No?On and on. Before you know it we have made the world's best five million dollars stereo sound so much better you can't believe it, and for less than a rounding error in the price.Tweaks rule. |
on 1/15 Geoffkait wrote of 5 Humbly submitted for your consideration. How not (rpt not) to be able to tell what a system sounds like 5. Lack of tweaks in the system. (Gotcha! That’s actually a clue to the system’s sound - bad!) I don’t know if this is to mean that lack of tweaks is a symptom of a bad sounding system. The absolute finest musical system I heard had no tweaks but did have ultra analog type adjustable speakers (Von Schweikert Ultra 11-no DSP) with superior cabling and superior stands. I also have heard several fantastic high end systems at several shows. Sure, they could sound better with tweaks, but for show acoustics and power availability, they were amazingly good. The majority of show exhibits were mediocre or bad (generally the choice of music made hearing them difficult). So I subscribe the notion that tweaks are not always necessary. I have many tweaks to address power and some acoustical deficiencies in my system which does not have SOTA components but relatively good ones. As one poster previously stated, better (and usually cheaper) to work with the equipment one has and tweak it to its best sound. |
Just finished my KT150 tube upgrade--first listen is jaw dropping in definition and dimension--guess the old KT120's were tired. Another big difference is that I finally got to paint tube pins with TC, had never done that in all this time. I had the amps off their stands, had to move the speakers aside, so eight mats also had to be reintroduced last night. Even with all the interruption and new TC to cure, the sound is already about 20% better than all the other times it had become 20% better---you know what I mean. |
^^^
thecarpathian ... Still not conclusive at this point. However, the sound the last two nights has been really spectacular and better than ever by far. I'm not sure if the alpha cards on the speaker cables have anything to do with it as I'm trying another new product in the system at the same time. I'll double up on the cards in a couple of days though, and maybe use a little TC on them as well. Another thing I want to try is to put some original Omega E-Mats under the speaker cable runs. They won't be touching the cables ... they will have about two inches of clearance all along the way. We'll see. Frank |
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Oh yeah, it totally adds up. Been comparing and experimenting with stuff like this since the early 90's. The undisputed value champ for most of that time was Black Diamond Racing Cones. To this day I have BDR under every single thing in my system. $300 will buy Cones for 5 components, pretty much a whole system, and make a huge improvement. But as great as this will be its nothing compared to what $300 of Total Contact will do. Nothing is ever perfect. The range of sonic traits is so vast, and the really good stuff is so good, that its tempting to just say across the board and call it good. Which I have done myself, a lot. Knowing full well that across the board is never perfectly evenly across the board. Usually, by intent or otherwise, its the top end and leading edges that tend to get hyped, resulting in the dreaded hi-fi sound. Even my most admired stuff, Synergistic, BDR, whatever, is in that same boat just not nearly to the extent of most other stuff. Not at all. So much so that until now I never even would have thought to say this. What Tim has developed though, and what Krissy is carrying on with, is on another level. There is none of the edge so common everywhere else. Yet neither is there any softness. There is only music. And the more you use, the more music you get. |
"It's not just Perfect Path of course...there's a lot going on and every bit helps; but TC and Perfect Path in general really is the best of the best" Millercarbon: You described the same phenomenon that I've been experiencing. I've been wondering about the"cumulative power of multiple tweaks," and I agree that the PPT stuff is the best of the best. In my case, this year I've added more cable elevators and RCA plugs, plus a Marigo CD mat. But, the two biggies was the "Snowmass"software upgrade on my PS Audio DAC and the PPT products (mats, e-cards & stops its). It is obvious to me that the latter two is what helped my system take a quantum leap. |
I don't doubt it, not for one second. I'm sure nobody believes me, but there really is a system here in Seattle at Definitive, an insane $1.3M that is just what you said, cannot match the intimate musically natural sound I'm getting now. Its not just Perfect Path of course. Synergistic HFT, ECT, PHT and Fuses, BDR Cones, there's a lot going on and every bit of it helps. Frankly all of it very similar in terms of effect. But TC and Perfect Path in general really is the best of the best. |
^^^ Millercarbon ... You might try pasting the inside of the metal door leading to the switches in your circuit breaker box. Also, check your electric meter to see if there’s a metal pipe leading out of the meter. If so, that pipe contains the wires leading out of the meter. Mine goes under the house. I pasted as much of the pipe as I could at Tim’s suggestion and got a nice improvement there. In addition, I didn’t just paste the speaker wire connections, I pasted the entire outside of the binding posts. If your speaker crossovers are accessible, there’s another opportunity for pasting. I'd like to end up by saying that these products are no joke and no hype. I, and my friends who are heavily into these products all agree ... we are getting performance in certain aspects of sound quality that we have never experienced before. That goes for everything we have ever heard at audio shows or at the homes of other audio enthusiasts owning truly mega-buck systems exceeding hundreds of thousands of dollars. Their systems may play bigger, deeper or louder, but they cannot match the kind of ultimate transparency in a very intimate, musically natural way that we are getting. And, this with speakers that can be bought today for under $2000. per pair. Frank |
Miller, I just looked on a light pollution map of the US, and central Montana remains one of the few places with little man-made ambient light. Older maps, eg, from the'50's, show that much of Western America was black at night. I'm finally putting Tungsol KT150's into my ARC REF 210's, with PPT to the tube pins, of course---in all, 22 tubes. Got 'em for half as much as Audio Research wants. |
^^^ Yep, Millercarbon ... it is hard to describe the lowering of the noise floor as done by using these products, and you just did an admirable job of it. Thanks. This morning as an experiment, I took some PPT Alpha-Cards, the flexible ones without the stainless steel backing, and bent them to fit into the "vees" of the Shunyata Research Dark Field Cable Elevators, then set the cables back onto the elevators. I should know the results, if any, by tonight. http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/equipment/shunyata_dark_field.htm If this works out, then I'll try doubling up the Alpha-Cards and possibly do something along these lines with the original PPT Omega Mats. Frank |
That's a good metaphor. I can still remember as a kid being out at night in Montana, miles from any electric light let alone a city, far even from the camp fire, and this was back in the early 60's. The Milky Way is so bright you can see your shadow on the ground. The sky is so black the stars gleam like jewels. It really is a lot like that with sound when the power is clean. What's really staggering is Krissy says The Gate is like 40 times everything I've done so far all together. If even half of that, then no wonder Frank is gushing at a loss for words. |
Spent this past weekend applying TC and listening. Talon Khorus crossovers was huge, although hard to say it was all due to TC as an E-Card went in each one as well, and those E-cards are pretty impressive themselves. The Dayton sub amps got a light coating on the transformers, the ends of all the caps, and fuse holders. Then the 10" Morel sub drivers came out and got a thin coat around the magnets. Wanted to solder the internal wiring direct to the coil but the wire and post are so big they suck up all the power from my little soldering pen so had to make do with some TC on the wires on the factory connectors. Listening to the difference with the subs was an interesting experience. With everything else the improvement is immediate and always. With subs its a lot more complicated. A lot of the time they do very little. Sometimes though its downright startling what they do. Probably the salient or main characteristic of TC is the way detail is revealed by a lower noise floor. Not noise like white noise but noise interwoven into the signal itself. Interwoven to the extent you'd never know its there until its gone. This has the effect of a seeming improvement in dynamics as well. Because dynamics aren't just how loud, but how big the range from quiet to loud. But while TC does improve dynamics that way, it also improves dynamics by increasing the speed and expanding the range. This shows up all the time in the way sounds explode like fireworks and make you feel like the amp just got twice as powerful. Well the same thing happened with the subs. Only I would sit there listening and listening, straining and concentrating trying to hear something that wasn't happening. Then suddenly BOOM! The music would get loud just like it always did only this time when Mighty Sam McClain's drummer hits the kick drum 3 times that 3rd time isn't just a bit louder it freaking explodes into the room. Then that's it, back to seemingly normal. The other really interesting thing, I heard Krissy sometimes throws a freebie or two into an order. Well she does. I got these little caps to go over unused RCAs. Only place to put them was on the Dayton Sub amps. How that is gonna make any difference I don't know. But then I don't really know how any of this stuff works anyway either! So on they went. And yeah, same deal, and I am still shaking my head over that one. Anyway, my TC application brush is toast. Frazzled. We're talking this thing makes Don King look good. Never been cleaned, plenty of TC caked on, so I mailed it off to tweak1 who will be giving it the acid test soon. I mean, if whatever dried out remnants he can scrape off makes a difference, then just imagine what a full tube can do. Mine still has about 0.3ml left to go! |
If you can buy into my proposition that the harder the cone material AND the more ballistic 🚀 the shape of the cone the better the sound (more open, faster, more natural), then tempered steel 8 and NASA grade ceramic cones 9.5 rise to the top of the list whilst brass 3.5 and carbon fiber 2 drop to the bottom of the list. The objective is to allow energy to be transferred as rapidly as possible, which very hard cones do well, relatively soft cones not so well. |
Then your panel was installed back when just the one utility ground was code. Nowadays they add another redundant t earth ground. Whatever. Doesn't really change anything. Merely an opportunity for those with open minds to realize electrical code has as much to do with politics as safety. Still, what I thought. 240v breakers connect to both 120v bus bars. That's how you get 240v. There'll be 2 wires coming out of a 240v breaker. Connect to either one, doesn't matter which, its 120v. Connected to both together, only then do you get 240v. So your Gate is 120v. Oh, and in case the fact that connecting a wire to a 240v breaker will only get you 120v isn't enough, try this on for size: connecting to two 120v breakers will get you 240v. As long as they're on different legs. Electrons only care about voltage potentials, not labels. Think about it. As far as the difference, if you look behind the breakers you'll see why that might be. 240v breakers reach across and connect to both bars. The Gate doesn't have 120v going through it, let alone 120v. The Gate has no appreciable voltage going through it at all. That's not, I should probably hasten to add, not based on any special insider scoop from Krissy but on just the usual facts of electricity. Plus a little possibly not so ordinary reasoning... |
Pretty sure I know what's going on and can clear things up but first tell me how many wires connect the 240v breaker to The Gate (1 or 2?) and second tell me which bus bar, because there's more than one. Four, to be precise. One bus bar will have all bare wires connected- that's earth ground. Another bus bar, opposite side, is white insulated wires- that's neutral aka utility ground. Then behind the breakers are two big thick copper bus bars, each one leg of 120v. So, how many wires, and to what? |
Millercarbon, As far as I understand the gate is used on 220 breaker as it stands. Mine is connected and shared to my AC 220 breaker and the bus bar. I think I read that some were using it in the 110 and that was not as good using the 220.. I’m pretty sure I was told that Tim recommended the gate to be connected to a breaker such as the dryer which is obviously 220. Perhaps someone can verify. |
tweak1 Is the contact the greatest thing since sliced bread that those of you posting here seem to believe? How much of the comments are driven because it was so expensive, it must be good, and so the purchaser starts hearing things to justify the expense? Or, is it really that good? No, the greatest thing since sliced bread is Black Diamond Racing Cones. Did you read the TC Mega Review? Please do. It clearly states exactly the kind of person it will be the greatest tweak ever for. Maybe that's you. Then again, maybe not. The results will be there, of that there is no doubt. Whether you are able to hear and appreciate only that is in question. If I don’t hear what you all are, I doubt it’s returnable. Maybe if they cut the price in half I would be more willing to find out. If you don't hear what we all hear, I doubt you're an audiophile. And if they cut the price in half we all would be more willing. Its called price elasticity. Do they not teach economics in school any more? You want to know how good it is? Really? And too cheap to do like everyone else and just buy it? Okay, tell you what. My brush hasn't been cleaned and its getting all fuzzy and so now I am about ready to get another one. I could clean it with alcohol but instead how about you send me your address and I stick it in the mail. There's probably enough on the brush to do a few RCAs, PCs and speaker cables. More than enough to be better than any other contact cleaner on the market. That's how good it is. Only one condition: you let us know how it goes. What you did, and what you heard- or didn't. Deal? |
slaw8 my purpose was to inform that it too is a huge benefit to ones sound, without the PPT, but for considerably less $$$ Is the contact the greatest thing since sliced bread that those of you posting here seem to believe? How much of the comments are driven because it was so expensive, it must be good, and so the purchaser starts hearing things to justify the expense? Or, is it really that good? If I don’t hear what you all are, I doubt it’s returnable. Maybe if they cut the price in half I would be more willing to find out |