Well, on March 8th, at the age of 64, I suffered a mild stroke. I have felt that things were returning to normal for the last few weeks. Now I’m not so sure. I just reviewed an email that came to me from Agon about a mysterious substance involving something called 3-Dimensional Enhancer, the NPS 1260. It claims to cure literally all my audio problems for the low price of $599. Is this some leftover April Fools thing or am I having some sort of stroke relapse? I’m hoping that MC has some form to sage advice for this conundrum.
Why the heck does this annoying product keep popping up? lol
The price is too high. It must be snake oil.
It’s supposed to be a contact enhancer. These are used when the contacts on 6.3mm adapters and other cables lose conductivity overtime. This usually happens once gold plating has been stripped. You may get sound in one channel but not the other.
The spelling mistakes....the lies about electrons moving very slowly and something about spin??? making them faster...and break in time of up to 60 hours? Overall, it sounds like it was written by someone who dropped out of high school or never finished College.
This product is clearly made for an audiophool (not an audiophile) who knows absolutely nothing about electronics. Folks who buy magic rocks to improve sound quality would by this without thinking about it. And I am afraid that such people still exist. 😵
Tim Mrock developed an amazing product called Total Contact. TC as we call it was one of the greatest most high value audiophile products of all time. To call it a contact enhancer, technically okay yes it is. But TC is so much more. Can't hardly even begin to explain.
I have tried a lot of contact enhancers. Avoided trying TC mostly due to what I now know to be the BS of the snake oil crowd. There's a definite group of wanna-bee audiophiles who cannot hear, won't try things, and would rather pick apart everything they don't understand if that means trying to fire up one of the few neurons floating around somewhere in their cavernous cranium. People who actually bother to try stuff wind up like me with vastly better sounding systems for their effort. So it all evens out in the end.
Anyway, I got some TC and tried it and as always I try something very small at first. So I took one microscopic little dab, spread it micro-thin on the spade lugs of my speaker cables, and that was it. This was a long time ago, might have done an AC plug or two as well. Whatever. Point is, not the whole system. Not even close. Just a teeny tiny dab spread super thin on a few connections.
This tiny little dab produced an improvement in natural ease, image focus and inner detail like I never heard before. Not because it was so huge. I only did a little bit. But because of the type or character of the change. It was as if now the performer was just a little bit more a real live flesh and blood presence in the room. Yeah.
Well if that's all it did then the 1.5 ml tube is more than enough to do a huge system, any huge system, several times over. So after doing all my connections I went looking for more. One tube, if you are careful and spread it uniformly thin, will easily do an entire circuit breaker panel.
There's the problem- if you are careful! TC is highly conductive. Audiophiles it turns out are barely more careful than your average bus rider. They slather the stuff around, short things out, and of course when this happens they blame the manufacturer not their dim-witted use of the product.
In short TC is an audiophile miracle, that many audiophiles love to hate simply because it works, and that is a PITA to sell because of all the audiophiles who can't operate anything more complicated than a remote. So if you get some, be careful with it!
I'm talking about TC because I know TC and this stuff looks like a total ripoff of TC. Only who knows maybe about twice as expensive. TC was $300 for 1.5ml. If this is $600 and it is as good as TC then it better be 3ml at least, and if so then you can do an awful lot with it.
That however is a lot of "if's".
From what I have seen, which at the risk of triggering the hyperbole police is WAAAYYYYYY more than I can divulge here, nobody nowhere no how copied or came up with anything as good as TC.
If they did though then yes, helluva deal. That however is one mighty big "IF".
boxer12 No i was going to try the PPP too slow to order. Then the inventor past away. The product ended shortly after. So i cannot tell you if it is the same or better not as good. But what i can tell you it is worth the money. I believe they now offer a smaller size for less money. It does not take much to treat a whole system. The sound improvement now that i have had in system for a while is not small.
I miss labeled the other product as PPP, in my above post and i have should of said TC. PPP was another product by the same gentleman who invented the TC. MY Bad
Yesterday, I finally got around to straightening out the jumble of wires and extension cords I was using for my PC setup. I got a nice ten-receptacle power strip at Lowes to hook everything up. Before plugging everything in, I treated all of the connections with TC. Right off the bat, the sound improved immensely. I'm using a pair of Audio Engine A2+ speakers for the computer system. These little speakers can really sing. The reduction in noise from using the TC is really amazing.
Frank, Yeah and nobody else has a clue. Those of us who know, the only question here is how good a copy do they have? If it is a really good knock-off then it could be worth every penny. Only problem with that being, who of us who has tried the real thing is gonna fork over to find out? Few if any. Okay so then so if someone does try it, but they never tried TC, then how are they gonna know just how good it is? They aren't.
The conundrum is, we know it is entirely possible to make something so good nobody can hardly even believe it. I mean even you and me who have used it all over the place, even we can hardly believe how good it is. Like you just said, fricken PC sounds good now. Crazy. But that is up against a crowd where some of these guys are so dense they still don't get that contacts cleaned with ordinary alcohol is an improvement. They don't get anything. Zip. Nada. If it ain't an amp or a speaker it's snake oil.
Oh well. At least we got our insanely 'you are there' systems to enjoy. It all evens out in the end.
"Would it be "Snake Oil" at $5.99 a bottle? If not, when on the price continuum between $5.99 and $599.00 does it transform into "Snake Oil"? "
It’s not primarily a price issue.
It’s a question of something purporting to do something out of the ordinary, when it clearly doesn’t.
"I just reviewed an email that came to me from Agon about a mysterious substance involving something called 3-Dimensional Enhancer, the NPS 1260. It claims to cure literally all my audio problems for the low price of $599."
Therefore it’s safe to classify it as a simple contact cleaner being sold as snake oil.
Breathtakingly expensive top of the range snake oil, but snake oil nevertheless.
If you believe in the need for contact enhancers, and many don’t, they argue that the simple breaking and making a connection every couple of months is sufficient, then the tried and trusted Caig Deoxit D5 contact enhancer might be more palatable to your pocket.
Or a careful wipe with a trusted metal cleaner or simple wipe with isopropyl alcohol instead.
As Mark Twain once wrote, ’you pays your money and you takes your choice’.
When you see the words ’snake oil’ on an audio forum, consider automatically changing it to read as the words ’sour grapes’.
sour grapes. COMMON. If you describe someone’s attitude as sour grapes, you mean that they are jealous of another person’s success and show this jealousy by criticizing that person. These accusations have been going on for some time now, but it is just sour grapes. The government says that Mr Fedorov’s criticisms are mere sour grapes. Note: In one of Aesop’s fables (= traditional stories, usually with a moral), a fox tries several times unsuccessfully to reach a bunch of delicious-looking grapes. In the end he gives up, telling himself that they are probably sour and inedible anyway.
If they can’t hear it and/or if they feel it is ’expensive’, then it’s "snake oil".
Oh, I mean "sour grapes".
Almost as if we need a script for the given forums that automatically blanks out the term ’snake oil’ and replaces it with ’sour grapes’, or blanks out the word pairing ’snake oil’ in the same way it blanks out attempts to swear.
One could also ask a forum owner or administration to enact this with their given ’granny checker’, so that it edits it out like attempts at swearing.
I suspect that audio forums would become quite a bit more civil post that change....
Even more fun... the granny checker that checks for swearing can be set so that the post will not happen until the word pairing ’snake oil’ is removed from the attempted post. Further yet...that the given post goes to vapor, and the posting script is reset....the poster loses the post into the interwebs ether. A far more stinging lesson. And far more forum peace. This can be enacted by most audio forums in mere seconds.
How much the sound stage has opened up is just unbelievable
Unbelievable to you and some others, sure. But as for me, the only thing I find hard to believe is they somehow managed to come up with something about as good as TC. But if they did then yes indeed, it would be just as you describe.
With TC the merest tiniest thinnest application on even just a few contacts does indeed open up the sound stage with every point source being a lot more palpable, real, and natural sounding, with more air around it, a deeper background, and the ability to hear the most subtle details with great clarity.
The really amazing part, this all comes with a greater sense of ease. Pretty much everything else that improves clarity and detail comes with a bit of an edge or grain, hardness, whatever you want to call it. TC is the opposite, improving clarity and detail while also making the sound more liquid smooth.
If that is what you are hearing, good. One more test to find out just how good it is. TC worked not only on the points of contact but, well, pretty much everywhere there is signal flowing. The effect seems greater where the fields are strongest and most highly fluctuating. That would be around speakers and amps. Especially speakers. Paste a very thin coating around the outside of the wires going to your drivers, on the wires, caps and inductors in the crossover, on the driver terminals or even on the driver magnet and basket.
If you are unwilling or unable to go in there and do that then do the same inside your amp. BE VERY CAREFUL because the stuff is highly conductive. But as long as you are careful not to create a short anywhere you can apply a thin coat around the outside of signal wires, caps, transformers, anywhere like that. Does not take much. Very thin coat. Goes a long way.
The biggie if you have what it takes, I did this to my panel. This is just to give you some idea. I have pasted this stuff around the inside of my panel and the outside of my AC wires all the way from the panel to the room. What you have done, what you are hearing, times one hundred. Yeah. And people wonder why I rave about my system.
TC was $300 for 1.5ml. How much they give you for $600? What's it say on the label?
"I got a nice ten-receptacle power strip at Lowes to hook everything up. Before plugging everything in, I treated all of the connections with TC. Right off the bat, the sound improved immensely."
That ECI stuff is more of a true contact enhancer, nano carbon particles designed to reduce the micro-arcing that occurs when the signal jumps across microscopically small gaps in between conductors. That is part of what TC does. They are similar in using some kind of oil based carrier. With TC the carrier evaporates leaving only the nano-particles behind. ECI uses an oil designed to stay oily a long time. Probably the biggest difference however is the way TC works not only on contact points but anywhere near a signal. You could paste that stuff on the inside of a AC outlet cover plate where nothing electrical touches and it would still produce about the same effect as if it was directly on the contact points. Crazy but true.
MillerCarbon ----the problem is that TC is no longer made. I have a tiny bit left over but it has hardened to where it is very difficult to apply. Any ideas on how to make it more pliable....and no it can't go in the microwave. LOL
I am thinking about trying that Furutech stuff on ebay for $150. What other alternatives do we have?
That ECI stuff is more of a true contact enhancer, nano carbon particles
designed to reduce the micro-arcing that occurs when the signal jumps
across microscopically small gaps in between conductors.
Surely someone has posted a video where they have captured these micro-arcs in a real world audio situation?
"...designed to reduce the micro-arcing that occurs when the signal jumps across microscopically small gaps in between conductors."
Micro-arcing of that sort may be beneficial to the sound, enhancing saltatory conduction. Hence, aforementioned contact enhancers may be detrimental to the sound.
In some translational theory, we could come back to my (r)evolutionary Biocables.
Pete, That sounds great. Please keep updating us on what improvements (or non-improvements if applicable) you hear while the product continues to break in. I appreciate your input!
For 599.00 you get 3ml. I was told they have a smaller size1.5 ml for sale at half the price of a big one. Until some does a direct comparison to TC we will not know if it's as good or better or the same. But with what it's done to my system it is worth every cent.
Miller you are not supposed to drink the stuff but then Kool-Aid appeals to some. Yeah snake oil big time and the moniker is trotted out not because it is disposalble income envy but rather it is common sense being disgusted with grandiose claims BS. The audio world seems to have more quacks then Dr Feelgood used to have out west with his Miracle Elixir. Great example of Snake Oil and I have bookmarked this one to pass on to others who get a good chuckle out of the absurdity of such, ahem, products. Well at least it IS a product of a fertile imagination so there is that to consider.
Micro Arcing heh heh. Gotta love all the verbal tossed salad that is served with the main course of nonsense.
Boy, the BS is flying again and 68pete is hallucinating. You do not need a contact enhancer or even a cleaner. You need new contacts. I have never had good connectors fail in any way. It is not just lay instinct anymore but lay st-----.
... BS is flying again and 68pete is hallucinating ...
It’s odd that you claim to be a physician, and then so casually pronounce medical diagnoses here on this site. It seems that those with whom you disagree are targeted for those declarations: you identify hallucinations, paranoid schizophrenia, and mental retardation all without even a cursory examination or even knowing the patient’s name. For you, disagreement is always rooted in someone else’s medical malady. Obviously you’re not much of a doctor.
You do not need a contact enhancer or even a cleaner. You need new contacts. I have never had good connectors fail in any way
Faulty logic. That you have never seen a good connector fail does not mean that a good connector never fails. And without examination, you have no way of knowing whether the user has dirty contacts or not.
I recently bought a Blu Ray DVD of the original Wizard of Oz. Two days ago, prior to watching the movie for the first time, I pasted all of my connections to the video system with TC. I’m using three of those aforementioned Lowe’s power strips for the tv system. I have lots of things (unmentionables :-)) plugged into them, so it took a while to get the job done. Holy crapola, Batman! The 73" Mitsubishi rear projection TV has never looked so good. Everything from regular TV broadcasts to Technicolor movies is much improved. Too bad this product is no longer being made. Every audiophile worth his/her salt deserves this product.
"The 73" Mitsubishi rear projection TV has never looked so good. Everything from regular TV broadcasts to Technicolor movies is much improved. Too bad this product is no longer being made."
These days, for the price of that product, if not less, you could have bought a brand new TV and be blown away.
Just like what Blu-Ray did for the movie...
"I recently bought a Blu Ray DVD of the original Wizard of Oz. Two days ago, prior to watching the movie for the first time,"
I recently bought a Blu Ray DVD of the original Wizard of Oz. Two days
ago, prior to watching the movie for the first time, I pasted all of my
connections to the video system with TC. I’m using three of those
aforementioned Lowe’s power strips for the tv system. I have lots of
things (unmentionables :-)) plugged into them, so it took a while to get
the job done. Holy crapola, Batman! The 73" Mitsubishi rear projection
TV has never looked so good. Everything from regular TV broadcasts to
Technicolor movies is much improved. Too bad this product is no longer
being made. Every audiophile worth his/her salt deserves this product.
Frank
What I find even more amazing, The Wizard of Oz was made back in 1939 and yet it has one of the most memorable scenes of all time, when Dorothy steps out the door from her black and white Kansas home and into the Technicolor world of Oz. The depth, saturation, and vibrancy of the colors is still to this day freaking incredible! You get used to it as the movie goes along. But that moment when she first steps into that world, wow!
Another one that makes a nice improvement, Synergistic ECT. We watch movies off the laptop a lot and when I put just one of these on it my wife noticed immediately! Better color saturation, cleaner more natural edges, more of a 3D look overall.
"What you have done, what you are hearing, times one hundred. Yeah. And people wonder why I rave about my system."
They do indeed.
They might also marvel at your commitment, endeavour and striving for the title of the "audiophile’s audiophile".
As for the clever pulling out of the hat idea of micro-arcing, nice try, but doesn’t this seems to contradict the rather badly written, yet impressvely lengthy blurb the advertisers (?) themselves have put out?
"What different about NPS-1260 is that this solution does not focus on electron transfer in a traditional approach. Not at least as it does in a "traditional contact enhancer"Instead, it focuses on magnetic or more precisely “electro-magnetic field” transfer.It is uniquely set apart in this concept, design and application."
"The is an understanding that is has more to do with the power of electro-magnetism and the subsequently produced magnetic fields associated with electrons and less to do with the actual electron (forward) movement thought to be responsible for electricity in traditional theory."
"The reason for this is that if connections are one of, if not the largest problem that will cause’s distortion. NPS-1260 is simply a method to prove and show this."
Just for the record, for anyone still interested, or even awake, I’ve got some crystal clear fluid that I can provide myself at a negligibly small cost.
You can get a whopping 30ml of S.O Magic 11- 345 at the giveaway sale price of, wait for it, $599.00.
If you were to carefully use it in conjunction with some Caig Deoxit and Autosol metal cleaner you may notice a tremendously dramatic, earth shattering, 100s of times magnification improvement in soundstaging, dynamics, timing and timbre.
I've seen the newest TVs. They have some really annoying digital artifacts that I couldn't live with. Yes, they are impressive at first, but they are like an audio system that has incredible transparency but lacks emotional musical impact. They are cartoonish. All but the very latest TVs are like that. The rear-projection TVs, although now obsolete, are more film-like in their presentations, kind of like the plasma TVs were. Think analog vs digital, or tube vs solid state.
When I was a little kid, my mother took me to see OZ. That was back in the very early 1940s. I will never forget that scene you described and how awed I was at the transition from black & white to Technicolor. Technicolor was new at the time, so it was quite something. Another one I was equally impressed with as a child was the original film of Snow White. The Fred Astair musicals were great in Technicolor too. The next one I'm getting is Fantasia. That should be a good one.
While Technicolor isn't accurate from a reality standpoint, it sure is fun to watch. Reality becomes quite evident when one walks outside and looks at natural surroundings. Those natural surroundings don't look like Digital TVs either.
Video improvement with ECT is very much like what you describe between digital and film. Video with ECT looks a lot more like film.
The best film is 70mm. The video equivalent of a direct to disc 45. I've seen Lawrence, My Fair Lady, Hamlet, and The Hateful Eight, all in glorious 70mm. Tarantino outdid himself filming The Hateful Eight in Ultra Panavision 70.
None of these is anything like reality. Which is the whole point. Reality is vastly overrated, at least when it comes to art. We are after all immersed in reality 24/7/365. (Well, some of us, anyway;)
I've seen the newest TVs. They have some really annoying digital
artifacts that I couldn't live with. Yes, they are impressive at first,
but they are like an audio system that has incredible transparency but
lacks emotional musical impact. They are cartoonish. All but the very
latest TVs are like that.
They ship in "store" mode. Over saturated, over noise reduced, over sharpened. This is not indicative at all of what modern TVs can do, properly setup, even relatively inexpensive ones.
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