Silclear Contact Enhancer: A Cautionary Tale

[gmgraves]

11 hours ago, mourip said:

I have been using Silclear "contact enhancer" for several years. The concept seemed obvious and logical to me.

 

To be honest I cannot say that I ever heard a difference but it seemed like a proactive practice to use for cleaning my IC pins and especially my tube pins....until this week.

 

I recently bought some new 12AX7 tubes for the input position of my Linear Tube Audio Ultralinear amp. After putting them in I listened for a few days but found that something just was not right. For some reason it occurred to me that in a moment of muddled confusion I had inserted both tubes in the same channel so that in one channel I had also replaced the 12AU7 phase splitter with the new 12AX7. This did not break anything but the channel balance was off and so was the sound. This was actually the good news!

 

When I went to correct my mistake I found that the Silclear on my existing tubes had somehow migrated UP the tube pins and had formed a thin but noticeable layer along the glass between many of the narrowly spaced pins. I was shocked since Silclear contains silver and is very conductive. The likelihood that small unwanted electrical currents were now passing between various tube pins seemed high.

 

I read the instructions when I first purchased the Silclear. They specifically say to use the smallest amount possible however there is really no way to ensure that, even if you are careful...as I was. The instructions say: " All tube pins; SilClear will improve tube cooling and will be left unchanged by tube pin temperatures." My theories are that either the Silclear gets pushed UP the pin as the pin is inserted or contrary to the instructions it flows upwards as the tube gets hot.

 

I used alcohol to clean off all of my tube pins and inspected all tubes to be certain that none of these "bridges" were still present. I was treated to the best sound that I had ever heard from my system. Clarity was vastly improved. I could now hear what my system was really capable of.

 

I can say that although I never heard an audible difference after first applying it, removing it produced a profound improvement. 

 

YMMV.

There is only one "contact enhancer" that has any real legitimacy. And that is Stabilant 22A. This used to be marketed by Dayton-Wright and Sumiko as "Tweek". But they no longer sell it. You can order it directly  from the manufacturer, D.W. Electrochemical Company in Ontario, Canada (they have a website), or from Amazon, or you can pick up a 15ml bottle from many auto supply houses. Warning this stuff ain't cheap but that's because it's the real thing! It has a NATO stock number, a US Mil-Spec #, as well as a NASA Specification.  It is used in the manufacture of cars, rockets, satellites, as well as military equipment. It works, I have actual, personal proof. My Alfa Romeo had an intermittent electronic speedometer. I would clean the contacts and reconnect the speedo and it would work for a while and then quit again. I finally, in desperation, treated the connector with Stabilant 22A. It never gave me any more trouble. I also treated the tail-light sockets with the stuff and never had any more trouble with with tail lights (older Italian cars were notorious for flakey electrics. I understand  that modern ones no longer have those problems). Now, as to whether it will improve the sound of one's hifi, is another matter. RCA connectors, XLRs, and 5-way binding posts already give one a near perfect connection in that a Wheatstone bridge can't even measure the contact resistance because it's so low. NASA and the military and the US auto industry use Stabilant to insure that the electrical connections are fairly immune to failure even in high vibration environments. It will enhance marginal connections and make them reliable. No doubt of that, but whether or not they make a hifi system sound better is really not in evidence as far as I can see.  I took the "Tweek  Challenge" when I bought my first bottle. I "Tweeked" one channel of my system  and compared it to the untreated channel. I heard nothing that I could consider a real difference (using a mono source, of course), but I continue to use it on speaker connections because I feel that they are the most vulnerable to vibrating loose. But, as Mourip pointed out, YMMV.

[gmgraves]

20 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Talking to one of the principals of a major vacuum tube electronics manufacturer, he mentioned that far and away the biggest cause of faulty amps was the use of contact enhancers. Several manufacturers actively discourage their use.  I always found that contact cleaners made from analytical grade alcohol worked best, evaporating entirely and leaving no residue. 

Yeah, I don’tt Think contact cleaners on tube pins is a very good Idea.

 

[gmgraves]

9 hours ago, davide256 said:

I can say that when I first tried Tweek and Deoxit it was very easy to observe reduced  background noise  by treating contacts on one side and turning amplification up to where you could first hear faint  pops and ticks.. the untreated side was always  worse than the treated side. But I haven't observed any other benefits. Since vacuum tube pins do oxidize I don't use tubes without treating them. As to Silclear, tried it once, but did not continue as it  looked like an accident waiting to happen... never had any migration/contamination issues with Tweek or Deoxit

Because tubes get hot, I wouldn’t treat the pins with any liquid or anything like Stabilant 22A which is actually a paste that is thinned with isopropyl alcohol.