Cleaning connections

[Larry Kart]

Ran across this advice a few days ago, don't recall where. Get ahold of some decent spray contact cleaner (I used CRC 2000) and clean all the connections on your playback equipment (don't neglect cable-to-speaker contacts), using Q-tips, pipe cleaners, etc. In some cases, judging by the eye, things were clean already; in others the Q-tips, pipe cleaners, etc. definitely picked up some dirty residue -- in which case repeat to make sure that there's none of that left. I did this late on Tuesday night and didn't turn on the unit until the next morning so as not to wake up those who were sleeping. Wednesday a.m. when I did turn things -- wow! Top and bottom ends extended, volume increased, more space around sounds, better imaging.

If you don't get similar results, at least there's no harm -- other than the cost of the can of contact cleaner and the modest effort involved. I suppose what I did could be overdone though -- so don't do that; more contact cleaner probably doesn't mean better. Let the presence or absence of dirty residue  on your Q-tips or pipe cleaners be your guide. But on a unit that's been sitting in a basement for almost a decade, some crud may well be present.

[Dan Gould]

Pigpen hanging Larry's listening to cool tunes:

[T.D.]

21 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Ran across this advice a few days ago, don't recall where. Get ahold of some decent spray contact cleaner (I used CRC 2000) and clean all the connections on your playback equipment (don't neglect cable-to-speaker contacts), using Q-tips, pipe cleaners, etc. In some cases, judging by the eye, things were clean already; in others the Q-tips, pipe cleaners, etc. definitely picked up some dirty residue -- in which case repeat to make sure that there's none of that left. I did this late on Tuesday night and didn't turn on the unit until the next morning so as not to wake up those who were sleeping. Wednesday a.m. when I did turn things -- wow! Top and bottom ends extended, volume increased, more space around sounds, better imaging.

If you don't get similar results, at least there's no harm -- other than the cost of the can of contact cleaner and the modest effort involved. I suppose what I did could be overdone though -- so don't do that; more contact cleaner probably doesn't mean better. Let the presence or absence of dirty residue  on your Q-tips or pipe cleaners be your guide. But on a unit that's been sitting in a basement for almost a decade, some crud may well be present.

+1 on all this, including the cable-speaker contacts. The brand I'm familiar with is DeOxit. My father was an audio hobbyist who bought a lot of used older/vintage gear from flea markets, eBay and the like. I have personal experience of many amps and receivers that initially sounded like crap and improved tremendously after contact cleaning. Bears repeating that it's also worth cleaning personal gear that's been sitting in the basement or garage, even if for just a few months IMO.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

My only concern with a generic, "Clean all your contacts" statement is that some pots are designed to self-lubricate and when you clean them out, you can remove the lubrication created by use. It often comes out of a connector as black gunk. Not all black gunk is bad,

Personally, I once destroyed a volume pot by cleaning out the lubrication. It eventually stopped rotating. I had to replace it.

FWIW, most self-lubricating pots are sealed so that you cannot remove this lubricating junk.

My rule of thumb is to wait until there's a problem and then fix it. I don't go creating them if I can help it.

Editing to add:

Spraying speaker connections would likely (I said likely!) have little effect because the major source of bad speaker connections is oxidation on the exposed copper. Not many sprays can do much with CuO. You usually have to use sandpaper to remove bad oxidation. If you use gold speaker connectors i.e. bananas or spades, then there's even less chance of doing much since gold doesn't oxidize.

Having said this, I suppose spraying some compressed air into the speaker connectors would remove dust/dirt which can't hurt, but I would not waste De-Oxit in there. It's just a fluid that would be carrying that dust/dirt out. Air works fine for that.