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#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
For quite some time now I have been very unhappy with the sound of my stereo
system which consists primarily of Bryston components. Today I had the idea to clean all of the male ends of my balanced XLR interconnect cables and the Bryston male balanced XLR inputs, which I proceeded to do with cotton buds and 99% isopropyl alcohol. The results are amazing, and with indeed very little effort, I believe that I reclaimed the original excellent sound of my stereo system. I am somewhat perplexed by these results since the ends of all of my balanced XLR cables are gold plated and I believe the Bryston balanced XLR input jacks likewise. It seems to me that a gold to gold connection should not deteriorate, and hence I wonder what is going on here? I also wonder how often the above described cleaning should be necessary in order to maintain top-notch sound? Perhaps others have had similar experiences and results? |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
In article ,
"Peter" wrote: For quite some time now I have been very unhappy with the sound of my stereo system which consists primarily of Bryston components. Today I had the idea to clean all of the male ends of my balanced XLR interconnect cables and the Bryston male balanced XLR inputs, which I proceeded to do with cotton buds and 99% isopropyl alcohol. The results are amazing, and with indeed very little effort, I believe that I reclaimed the original excellent sound of my stereo system. I am somewhat perplexed by these results since the ends of all of my balanced XLR cables are gold plated and I believe the Bryston balanced XLR input jacks likewise. It seems to me that a gold to gold connection should not deteriorate, and hence I wonder what is going on here? I also wonder how often the above described cleaning should be necessary in order to maintain top-notch sound? Perhaps others have had similar experiences and results? Have you ever heard of expectational bias? Thinking that all that work (cleaning XLR contacts - six per channel per connection) should result in a positive outcome, your subconscious provided it. This is an old story, believe me and is the same mechanism that is at work when one swaps out an old cable for a new, expensive one. Our cable swapper is thinking that as much as this cable costs, it had BETTER be a sonic improvement over the cable he just replaced and voila! When he turns on his system, magically, everything sounds much better. The cable is a miracle! Our swapper then takes his costly new cable to a double blind cable test at a local audiophile club meet, and offers it up for test. But, in the test, no one, not even the cable's owner, can tell any difference between the two cables being switched in the double-blind test! Even though one cable costs many hundreds of of dollars and the other is a "throw-away" cable that often comes packed with mid-fi and video components, no one can hear the slightest difference when they can't see, and therefore don't know which cable that they are listening to at any given moment. Truth is that your balanced, XLR connections on your Bryston components are gold plated and if your cables' XLR plugs also have gold plated pins, and if the connections have been mated all this time, they have been a pretty gas-tight set of connections. Since gold doesn't tarnish or corrode and since no dirt or airborne contaminates could possibly get into your connections, they are unchanged from the day you mated those connections originally and cleaning the connections could have NO real effect on the integrity of those connections. They would be as good today as they were the day you made them and that makes it very unlikely that all that cleaning could make ANY sonic difference to your system. Most likely, your growing dissatisfaction with your system's sound was as imaginary as the cure. But if the task of cleaning your XLR connections makes you like your system again, Bravo! --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
In article ,
ScottW wrote: On May 28, 7:36*am, "Peter" wrote: For quite some time now I have been very unhappy with the sound of my stereo system which consists primarily of Bryston components. Today I had the idea to clean all of the male ends of my balanced XLR interconnect cables and the Bryston male *balanced XLR inputs, which I proceeded to do with cotton buds and 99% isopropyl alcohol. The results are amazing, and with indeed very little effort, I believe that I reclaimed the original excellent sound of my stereo system. I am somewhat perplexed by these results since the ends of all of my balanced XLR cables are gold plated and I believe the Bryston balanced XLR input jacks likewise. *It seems to me that a gold to gold connection should not deteriorate, and hence I wonder what is going on here? If done right, you are correct. Gold to gold contact should be reliable. Unfortunately doing it right sometimes costs just a little bit more. Heres a simple discussion of basic connector gold plating from Amp. http://www.te.com/documentation/whit...f/aurulrep.pdf I also wonder how often the above described cleaning should be necessary in order to maintain top-notch sound? If your problem is due to oxides from exposed base metal....you're probably looking at increasing frequency required with each cleaning. You might find that simply reseating the connectors is sufficient to reestablish a good connection. I'd look at the pins for signs of exposed base metal and if visible...replace the the connector. Perhaps others have had similar experiences and results? I had a problem that I initially thought was a flaky connection on an RCA but it turned out the overtight monster connector cracked a solder joint on the board...even though the connector assembly was mechanically attached to the rear wall. Connectors can be "too tight" for their own good. ScottW I still say that XLRs provide a very reliable, gas-tight connection and as long as the connections are left alone (not made and broken multiple times) there is simply no way that cleaning something that doesn't need cleaning will actually do anything more than introduce the placebo effect into the equation. Now, if he had said that he cleaned and applied Stabilant 22 (Tweek) on all connection surfaces, then I might believe that a real improvement in sound was noticed by the OP. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
In reference to this topic I wonder if anyone might have had an opportunity
to evaluate the usage of Stabilant 22A vs. DeoxIT Gold for maintaining good contact in connections? Both manufacturers claim that their product is ideal for this purpose, but the DeoxIT Gold is supplied in a much more user-friendly package, i.e. in a bottle, premixed with a brush in the cap. |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
In article ,
ScottW wrote: On May 29, 3:52=A0pm, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , ScottW wrote: On May 28, 7:36 am, "Peter" wrote: For quite some time now I have been very unhappy with the sound of my stereo system which consists primarily of Bryston components. Today I had the idea to clean all of the male ends of my balanced XLR interconnect cables and the Bryston male balanced XLR inputs, which I proceeded to do with cotton buds and 99% isopropyl alcohol. The results are amazing, and with indeed very little effort, I believe that I reclaimed the original excellent sound of my stereo system. I am somewhat perplexed by these results since the ends of all of my balanced XLR cables are gold plated and I believe the Bryston balanced XLR input jacks likewise. It seems to me that a gold to gold connection should not deteriorate, and hence I wonder what is going on here? If done right, you are correct. Gold to gold contact should be reliable. Unfortunately doing it right sometimes costs just a little bit more. Heres a simple discussion of basic connector gold plating from Amp. http://www.te.com/documentation/whit...f/aurulrep.pdf I also wonder how often the above described cleaning should be necessary in order to maintain top-notch sound? If your problem is due to oxides from exposed base metal....you're probably looking at increasing frequency required with each cleaning. You might find that simply reseating the connectors is sufficient to reestablish a good connection. I'd look at the pins for signs of exposed base metal and if visible...replace the the connector. Perhaps others have had similar experiences and results? I had a problem that I initially thought was a flaky connection on an RCA but it turned out the overtight monster connector cracked a solder joint on the board...even though the connector assembly was mechanically attached to the rear wall. =A0 Connectors can be "too tight" for their own good. ScottW I still say that XLRs provide a very reliable, gas-tight connection and as long as the connections are left alone (not made and broken multiple times) there is simply no way that cleaning something that doesn't need cleaning will actually do anything more than introduce the placebo effect into the equation. I generally agree with this...if the connectors were clean when mated and are of a proper design. Sadly in the audio realm...all bets are off. I agree but in this case, the Bryston connectors are of very good quality both on their equipment and their interconnect cables. If the OP mated these connectors only once - when he assembled the system, then they simply didn't become dirty just sitting there, doing what they were supposed to do - transfer an audio signal from one piece of equipment to another. Now, if he had said that he cleaned and applied Stabilant 22 (Tweek) on all connection surfaces, then I might believe that a real improvement in sound was noticed by the OP. Now you've gone off the farm . First you insist that all gold plated XLRs are created equal and will provide a reliable gold to gold gas tight connection. My first question is...why does a well plated gold contact need to be "gas-tight"? Not really important, just a knit. Second and more important question....what will Stabilant do to improve a well designed, highly reliable, gold to gold connection? Good Questions. Gas-tight connections are what you get with XLRs. The Military and Aerospace specs demand it and XLRs are designed to provide it. A gas-tight connection insures that air-bourn contaminates cannot get into the connection and compromise it. Stabilant 22 is a contact enhancer. Even in a gas-tight, gold connection, less than a third of the mating surfaces are actually touching one another (on a molecular level). This is irrespective of the type of connector or how tightly they are mated. These polymer contact enhancers can improve performance and reliability of poorly designed, poorly plated, dissimilar metal contacts used in harsh environments. But to claim they will make a good gold contact sound better! It's crap. All gold does is keep the contact surfaces from corroding. It does nothing to increase the actual % of contact between the two gold surfaces. Here's a reference from stabilant that should tell you all you need to know. http://stabilant.com/techt22h.htm Well, if you have a car, it probably has Stabilant in the electrical connections somewhere. On my Vintage Alfa Romeo, An application of it has corrected a dodgy electronic speedometer connection, has increased the speed of my electric windows (old Italian electric windows are slow anyway and were when new. Ask any Ferrari 308 owner), and fixed an intermittent tail-light connection. It works. The DOD, NASA, and SAE all agree that it is worthwhile addition to most any connection. My first encounter with the stuff was when I worked as a cable engineer at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. We tested it thoroughly (I didn't know what it was; It just had a Mil-Spec number) It worked well and seemed to be linear well up into the microwave range where it started to cause some problems. It was later that I found it it was called Stabilant. We used the stuff on all DC up to VHF range connections for the Trident model Polaris missile and included it in the maintenance kits that Trident techs used. This one actually claims a measurable electrical improvement but uses PCB edge connectors. http://stabilant.com/techt24h.htm There is almost nothing in common between a well made connector and PCB edge plated finger contacts and there is nothing more widely variable in materials and quality than PCBs. I can say that even if you accept this data...extrapolating to any connection...especially any made by a reliable connector manufacturer is bullocks. I would note that even connectors sometimes need to be cleaned before use as they may have been stored poorly or repackaged by distributors in packages that with adhesives or plastics that out gas some nasty stuff. Most of the time the wiping force is enough to remove or break through and the stability of gold takes it from there..but a good contact cleansing doesn't hurt. In the normally benign home environment, a good gold to gold mated contact is probably better left alone as you said. I'm not sure I'd ever want an admitted non-linear electrically active polymer in my contacts. Check that...I'm sure I don't want it. That's up to you. While I don't pretend to know whether or not my system SOUNDS better as a result of using Stabilant, I do know that it does enhance the mating surface area of every RCA connection in the system (and RCAs need all the help that they can get - no matter how fancy). Removing it is easy, any alcohol-based contact cleaner will remove it. BTW, my comment to the OP was not meant to be any kind of endorsement of Stanilant, BTW. I just meant that cleaning contacts that don't need cleaning couldn't POSSIBLY result in any real sound improvement, but possibly, just possibly, applying Stabilant 22 could make some difference. and one would have a better chance of getting a positive result by "Tweeking" those already clean, tight connections than one would by simply cleaning them. Audio_Empire ScottW --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
In article ,
"Peter" wrote: In reference to this topic I wonder if anyone might have had an opportunity to evaluate the usage of Stabilant 22A vs. DeoxIT Gold for maintaining good contact in connections? Both manufacturers claim that their product is ideal for this purpose, but the DeoxIT Gold is supplied in a much more user-friendly package, i.e. in a bottle, premixed with a brush in the cap. I've used both. As I understand it, DeOxIT Gold is more of a contact cleaner than a contact enhancer. Stabilant 22 in a contact enhancer, pure and simple. Basically, it's the Stabilant gel that has been cut with isopropyl alcohol to make it easier to apply with minimum waste. When Dayton-Wright was marketing Stabilant 22 as a product called "Tweek" , their package instructions clearly stated that the connections should be clean and free of contaminates. I use DeOxIT Gold to clean the contacts, then I apply Stabilant. Whether or not Stabilant does anything for the sound, there is simply no doubt in my mind that it does work as a contact enhancer. I was having trouble with the electronic speedometer in my Alfa Romeo GTV-6. I fiddled with the connector on-and-off for a year. I couldn't get it to work reliably. I knew it was the connection with the wiring harness that was at fault, but no matter how much I cleaned the mating surfaces, I couldn't get the thing to work. I was looking at cutting the old connector off and splicing-in a "new" one purchased from an Alfa -only wrecking yard. As one last attempt to avoid that, I tried Stabilant on the two connectors (the male on the back of the speedo and the female at the end of the cable) I mated them, reinstalled the speedo into the dash panel, and I've never had any more trouble with the speedo. I've also since used it on the power window switches and the windows actually wind faster - both up and down. I KNOW Stabilant works as a contact enhancer (so do The US government, NASA, and the US auto manufacturers. It has a Mil-Spec number, a NASA number, and an SAE spec number). What I really haven't experienced is a double-blind test to ascertain whether or not the stuff actually results in any sonic improvement when used on all the mating surfaces on one's stereo. On that point I remain skeptical. I have noticed a difference, I took the "Tweek Challenge". I treated one entire channel (right) with Tweek and left the other alone When I switched my Audio Research SP 11 from "right mono" to "left mono", and back again, the right channel sounded much cleaner and clearer. Is this "challenge" worth anything? Not a brass farthing. Expectational bias will make the right channel sound better than the left just as well as Tweek will. But I do know this: It's just good practice to make sure that all your mating surfaces are clean, and tight and Stabilant 22 will ensure that you are getting the best connection possible. . --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
In article ,
ScottW wrote: On Jun 1, 5:36*am, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , *ScottW wrote: On May 29, 3:52=A0pm, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , ScottW wrote: [ Excessive quotation snipped. -- dsr ] I still say that XLRs provide a very reliable, gas-tight connection and as long as the connections are left alone (not made and broken multiple times) there is simply no way that cleaning something that doesn't need cleaning will actually do anything more than introduce the placebo effect into the equation. *I generally agree with this...if the connectors were clean when mated and are of a proper design. *Sadly in the audio realm...all bets are off. I agree but in this case, the Bryston connectors are of very good quality both on their equipment and their interconnect cables. If the OP mated these connectors only once - when he assembled the system, then they simply didn't become dirty just sitting there, doing what they were supposed to do - transfer an audio signal from one piece of equipment to another. Now, if he had said that he cleaned and applied Stabilant 22 (Tweek) on all connection surfaces, then I might believe that a real improvement in sound was noticed by the OP. *Now you've gone off the farm . *First you insist that all gold plated XLRs are created equal and will provide a reliable gold to gold gas tight connection. My first question is...why does a well plated gold contact need to be "gas-tight"? * Not really important, just a knit. Second and more important question....what will Stabilant do to improve a well designed, highly reliable, gold to gold connection? Good Questions. Gas-tight connections are what you get with XLRs. The Military and Aerospace specs demand it and XLRs are designed to provide it. A gas-tight connection insures that air-bourn contaminates cannot get into the connection and compromise it. Stabilant 22 is a contact enhancer. Even in a gas-tight, gold connection, less than a third of the mating surfaces are actually touching one another (on a molecular level). This is irrespective of the type of connector or how tightly they are mated. All that depends on many factors, contact forces, surface roughness, material softness etc. The question remains...if a good contact with uohms of resistivity is established....what improvement is required? These polymer contact enhancers can improve performance and reliability of poorly designed, poorly plated, dissimilar metal contacts used in harsh environments. But to claim they will make a good gold contact sound better! It's crap. All gold does is keep the contact surfaces from corroding. It does nothing to increase the actual % of *contact between the two gold surfaces. % of contact is meaningless. When contact resistance is negligible making it even more neglible is....well....negligible. Here's a reference from stabilant that should tell you all you need to know. http://stabilant.com/techt22h.htm Well, if you have a car, it probably has Stabilant in the electrical connections somewhere. On my Vintage Alfa Romeo, An application *of it has corrected a dodgy electronic speedometer connection, has increased the speed of my electric windows (old Italian electric *windows are slow anyway and were when new. Ask any Ferrari 308 owner), and fixed an intermittent tail-light connection. It works. The DOD, NASA, and SAE all agree that it is worthwhile addition to most any connection. As I said...in harsh environments (including high vibration) the answer is it can improve reliability. It won't make a significant change in contact resistance of a good contact. My first encounter with the stuff was when I worked as a cable engineer at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. We tested it thoroughly (I didn't know what it was; It just had a Mil-Spec number) It worked well and seemed to be linear well up into the microwave range where it started to cause some problems. It was later that I found it it was called Stabilant. We used the stuff on all DC up to VHF range connections for the Trident model Polaris missile and included it in the maintenance kits that Trident techs used. Ultra high reliability required for long term storage and short duration mega high vibration environments. Zero in common with home audio use. Well, when you put it that way, You are right. Undeniably and unequivocally. I never thought of it that way. Yes, a, clean, tight connection is both close to zero resistance and immune from contaminates you are right again when you say that any RCA connection has more contact surface area than any switch in the signal path. But if you "Tweek" one channel and not the other, you will hear a difference in an ad-hoc blind test (have your significant other switch between them). --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#8
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
In article ,
ScottW wrote: On Jun 2, 3:12*pm, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , *ScottW wrote: On Jun 1, 5:36 am, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , ScottW wrote: On May 29, 3:52=A0pm, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , ScottW wrote: *[ Excessive quotation snipped ] Ultra high reliability required for long term storage and short duration mega high vibration environments. * Zero in common with home audio use. Well, when you put it that way, You are right. Undeniably and unequivocally. I never thought of it that way. Yes, a, clean, tight connection is both close to zero resistance and immune from contaminates you are right again when you say that any RCA connection has more contact surface area than any switch in the signal path. *But if you "Tweek" one channel and not the other, you will hear a difference in an ad-hoc blind test (have your significant other switch between them). Does that make it good? I'd suggest the change in impedance between a good connection and good treated connection is less than the variability within crossover component tolerance. If treating makes an audible difference to a good connection, I'd suggest it is likely for the worse rather than the better. The test I performed, years ago, the channel I treated sounded noticeably cleaner to me. Of course, I haven't repeated said test in decades (heck, they don't even sell Tweek any more). --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#9
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
The difference might have been caused by channel imbalance.
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#10
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
In article ,
STC wrote: The difference might have been caused by channel imbalance. What difference? You really need to quote the text of the post to which you are responding. Otherwise most people will have no idea what you are even talking about. I sure haven't a clue about what you mean. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
On Saturday, June 8, 2013 4:26:15 AM UTC+8, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article , =20 STC wrote: =20 =20 =20 The difference might have been caused by channel imbalance.=20 =20 =20 =20 What difference? You really need to quote the text of the post to which= =20 =20 you are responding. Otherwise most people will have no idea what you are= =20 =20 even talking about. I sure haven't a clue about what you mean. =20 =20 =20 --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- Sorry about that. I was using Ipad and I thought it would auto include the = quote the post. But if you "Tweek" one channel and not the other, you will hear a difference in an ad-hoc blind test (have your significant other switch between them). There are just too many variables using your method for blind test. PreAmps= and Amps with identical channels are rare if not impossible. Even speakers= may not be identical. A small difference in the loudness between the two c= hannels is enough to affect our judgment. I am not saying you heard no difference but suggesting you may want to elim= inate possible oversights in your test methodology. I am speaking from my o= wn experience.=20 |
#12
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Major Improvement!
In article ,
STC wrote: On Saturday, June 8, 2013 4:26:15 AM UTC+8, Audio_Empire wrote: In article , STC wrote: The difference might have been caused by channel imbalance. What difference? You really need to quote the text of the post to which you are responding. Otherwise most people will have no idea what you are even talking about. I sure haven't a clue about what you mean. --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- Sorry about that. I was using Ipad and I thought it would auto include the quote the post. But if you "Tweek" one channel and not the other, you will hear a difference in an ad-hoc blind test (have your significant other switch between them). There are just too many variables using your method for blind test. PreAmps and Amps with identical channels are rare if not impossible. Even speakers may not be identical. A small difference in the loudness between the two channels is enough to affect our judgment. I am not saying you heard no difference but suggesting you may want to eliminate possible oversights in your test methodology. I am speaking from my own experience. Good points, all. This was the Tweek "Challenge" at the time. Sure, as evidence it's worthless. And it's easy to get caught up in this crap. As an audiophile, we all (I think) want to get as close to the "Absolute Sound" as is possible. So when something comes along that promises to improve connectivity between components - especially when it's used by the aerospace and defense industries as well as the automotive industry for the same purpose, many of us are going to try it. I'm an electronics engineer (by trade) and even I never stopped to think that how can you improve an electrical connection that already reads 0 ohms of resistance? What many of us have to do is "get over" this notion that as a signal, there is something "special" about audio. We tend to set it apart from other "mundane" electrical signals such as TV, radar, computers, etc. because we love music, and don't think much about those other AC signals. We often forget (even us engineers) that music as an electrical signal is just another AC signal - and a low frequency one at that. It follows the same laws of physics as do these other signals that we don't care so much about. When I read another posters explanation about why Stabilant really does nothing in a stereo system, I slapped my head in a V8 Juice moment and said to myself "of course! If the connection is already approaching zero ohms of resistance, then from DC to 20 KHz or so, the extra contact area afforded by applying Stabilant 22 to all the connections is going to have absolutely no affect on the audio signal carried by those connections." IOW, We need to change our way of thinking from it's AUDIO! to It's ONLY audio. only Audio_Empire --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: --- |
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