Silclear Contact Enhancer: A Cautionary Tale

[fas42]

A good cautionary tale ... from experience, hold the perspective that these silver based solutions are like one time use, greasy solder - solder because it stabilises the electrical connection, protects the contacts; greasy because once you start playing with grease it will get everywhere, unless one is extremely precise in applying it, and how you touch and manoeuvre things; and one time effective - as soon as you break or significantly move the metal contacts assume the connection is compromised - clean everything, thoroughly, and reapply.

[fas42]

8 minutes ago, Panelhead said:

  Tweet also has downsides. Mainly from either slopping too much, or repeated application. Do not know the ph of the Tweek residue but is not neutral. 

 

My experience with this type of contact enhancer ... found that it still allowed the contacts to deteriorate over some period of time, with audible consequences - confirmed by thorough cleaning off of the liquid residue, and trying the fresh, raw metal surfaces alone.

 

Possibly the exact 'right' compound for the particular metals can be found, to do the job - but I haven't. My solution is either soldering, or silver particle preparations, applied in a very precise way.

[fas42]

The point of all these treatments is merely to ensure integrity of the connection - if you have two lengths of copper wire, and you wish to join them to make them equivalent to a single, double length piece of wire - that's all that any of these procedures can do. It can't 'improve' your sound to some magical place, which is beyond what the components are capable of - it just gives the rig a better chance of maintaining overall consistency of quality; that's all one should expect of doing this type of thing.

[fas42]

I've found separating the contacts and thoroughly cleaning always works - as a very short term measure. Simply twisting in place is an extremely short term solution; the contact goes bad again very, very quickly - makes sense why, all one is doing is "stirring up the sludge" that's accumulated; and it oozes back in place, as soon as it can.

 

Audible effects of the contact cleaners, IME, is that after a period in place the sound goes relatively dead, much of the sparkle is lost - it's boring to listen to. If the contact is going bad otherwise then any material with strong treble content develops an edginess, an "I can't keep listening to this track!" quality. Pristine connections provides maximum life and sparkle, with never hints of "being too much" - IOW, conveys the energy while still remaining 'smooth', just like live music does.

[fas42]

What I've used for ages is just the standard Chemtronics CircuitWorks grease - quite a dry paste, don't have issues with it oozing around - liquidy might look more impressive, but the drier stuff still does the job.