Deoxit Contact Enchancers

..and 1.21 gigawatts?

Also, Deoxit D, good for cleaning the pins of tubes, or would you have at it with a cotton bud (trans: q-tip) and some Deoxit Gold?

 

I can believe it. I measure the effect of Deoxit in the difference between didn't work and does now.

Well, ok... I do confess to sometimes rubbing a little on batteries, battery contacts, and other bits of important anatomy,..

 

Instead of a jeweler's cloth, I use blue magic (basically makes any cloth a jeweler cloth), followed by alcohol to remove any residue:
https://www.amazon.com/BlueMagic-300-Metal-Polish-Cream/dp/B002UJ1DD2/
Some WE tubes I use have silver plated pins, and this technique works great on them (from black to silver). It is also what cleaned up the metal on this amp:
http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/finished-repairing-tango-211-amp.1473/

 

Regular Dexoit Gold is not rated for High heat? They do sell a kit specific to cleaning tubes:

https://www.amazon.com/Hosa-SKGXMDBULK-Deoxit-Vacuum-Survival/dp/B007K8M9JA

Though I read that overspraying/overapplication could be detrimental to tube sound. So do this with moderation in mind:

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t33851/

 

That guy is definitely over the edge into nervosa, hitting his HDMI connections with it regularly. I have to wrangle bunches of 4k displays connected over HDMI, and have never had any connection issues beyond "plug has fallen out" or "someone has borrowed a cable".

 

I think he is doing it not because of connection issues with his hdmi cable, but on the mindset of improving signal integrity(through reduction of resistance by decreasing tarnish/oxidation). I'm not sure if it will improve color/contrast/image quality of his system but I guess it's videophile neverosa.

And on the topic of gold connectors/contacts:

Looks like lubrication of gold contacts(increasing cycles to failure) is recommended for connectors that require frequent mating(i.e. IEM stereo TRS! not sex!). Although it is not mentioned what is the gold lubricant.(I am assuming deoxit gold does that?)

http://www.te.com/documentation/whitepapers/pdf/aurulrep.pdf

 

This frequent-mating business is one of the main causes of trouble. I'm glad, in some ways, that it is not just my ears that are getting old!

But, for goodness sake... how frequent is frequent? It doesn't matter: anything an audiophile can worry about is worth spending money and time on.

It has been said that simply disconnecting and reconnecting cables can make an audible difference, and is a big source of revenue for the cable makers. As a lot of this religion stuff comes down to believing selected bits of what we read or hear, I'll go with this one. Because its cheap and reasonable!

But hey, I have a can of deoxit... so why not!

 

I will have a can today, if Amazon Logistics don't do another pretend delivery- but then, I will have a valve or two to fret about. Exciting stuff!

 

Just applied this stuff on the two silver area of these bussmann fuses found inside the ac power cords of my speakers, power conditioner and etc.



Sonically, There's a Hugh Mugus difference for sure. Go experience for yourself. Didn't burn down my house doing it.

This deoxit seems to take away some kind of grunge from the sound system. It's pretty progressive, the more places you apply it, the more grunge gets removed. Think of it as a car windscreen that is fresh out of the car wash, vs a uncleaned week old car windscreen.

 

Oh, I have been reading a certain amount of stuff saying not to use deoxit on tubes or tube sockets; apparently the heat can turn it into unhelpful gunk that can cause problems with the contact- ironically.

I have no first-hand experience about whether this is true, mind, so pinch of salt time.

 

You can always use cloth/alcohol to wipe off excess gunk if it does affect sound quality. I don't think dust is as bad as oxidation.

So far I am loving what it does to improve the sound quality of my Sony Zx2 + xba-z5 upgraded cable. It add alittle more airiness, texture and timbre to the sound.

 

No so much affect sound quality as outright cause intermittent or failed connections.. That's more or less the opposite of what you'd be going for. For that reason, I'll probably keep it away from tube sockets specifically - even if I do still use it on other things that do not heat up, e.g. interconnects etc..

 

Some interesting results, Again this is my personal experience, your results might not be exactly the same as mine.

Previously in the usb decraper thread, I mentioned that the Sony NW-ZX2 DAP when used as transport to the Yggdrasil didn't sound good due to bad stereo imaging(i.e. no distinct channel separation between left and right channel, it sounds as if both left and right channels are combined together)

Well I took the deoxit gold and applied to the WMC-HWH10 cable and tested again and this time, stereo imaging improved quite alot! Now it sounds really close to my audiophile PC usb port. Didn't expect that oxidation could be the cause of bad transport performance, maybe there's something going on with signal interference caused by oxidation or something.

https://www.amazon.com/Sony-WMC-NWH10-Conversion-Cable-Output/dp/B00FF086HE

chain:
Sony ZX2 DAP > WMC-NWH10 > Belkin Gold USB > Wyrd > Belkin Gold USB > Mutec MC3+USB > AES > Yggdrasil > XLR > Master 9 > XLR > HS8

 

I took the dexit and applied it to the contact points in my mouse's left button.

You can call it expectation bias... but I can now, for instance, highlight blocks of text without the contact breaking and making and the highlight going all over. And in SOL (The old XP version, running under Wine) the cards go where I put them, instead of flying around all over.

I'm glad to say that the result is exactly what I expected, and it is a night and day difference.



(But hey, what if I had just cleaned the contacts? )

 

A group of friends and I back home have been playing around with various brands of contact cleaners and contact enhancers (more on the portable audio side, though I'm looking forward to trying it out on my newly acquired desktop rig).

I have found that, after some testing, that both cleaners and enhancers have helped to improve sound quality. The main difference for the contact cleaners seem to be, like some of the gents have mentioned here, a improvement in liveliness and clarity. I feel that everyone should have a small bottle of the DeOxit R(ed) sitting around for occasional cleaning; it really does make a difference!!

As for contact enhancers, I've gotten the opportunity to hear a few options ranging from cheap (DeOxit Gold) to expensive (Furutech Nano Liquid, those crazy Japanese ). All of them have, IME, changed the sound slightly in their own way. For example, I found the Furutech to improve overall resolution along with minute improvements in all the frequency ranges. YMMV.

Am I crazy/are my ears broken? Maybe, but for now I'm very happy with what I've experienced. I'll continue using the two DeOxits on all my audio gear for the foreseeable future.

 

Haven't really done it in a while, but cleaning with Deoxit and treating with Silclear once every few months seemed beneficial to me