dbflash Posted December 2, 2002 Share Posted December 2, 2002 I know this has been mention before, but what is a good tube socket,pins cleaner. Last Wednesday night a friend came over to help fine tune my system. He brought some AQ Ultra Connect 2 contact cleaner over. The first thing we cleaned was the connectors(IC connectors and RCA jacks) from my CD player out to my preamp in. What a difference. The system sounded just amazing. Hi's and Mids just came alive. The next thing he did was clean and lubricate my AC cables for my amps. That was the best upgrade I've done. The sound I got was incredible. It was like I put a new amp in my system. I didn't know how much power I wasn't getting. The lubricant can be bought at a auto parts store. It's the same stuff you put on battery's. That was all the time we had that night. He had to catch a plane early that moring, so we didn't have time to clean the rest of my system. I now want to clean my amps. What's a good cleaner? Danny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted December 2, 2002 Share Posted December 2, 2002 Any contact cleaner and a cotton swab will do the trick. Also clean the tube sockets with contact cleaner. Percy audio has some nice socket cleaner brushes if you download his catalog. Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted December 3, 2002 Share Posted December 3, 2002 Caig Laboratories (www.caig.com) has electrical contact cleaners, preservatives & conductivity enhancers made specifically audio/video (& other) applications. Their ProGold G5 works great! One step process. And yes......use it on the tube pins & sockets! I use it with some cotton swabs or cotton wrapped around toothpicks to get into the tighter places. (by the way, all you really need to clean automotive battery terminals is some baking soda mixed with a little water) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted December 3, 2002 Share Posted December 3, 2002 DB -- I think you're losing it. I just use IPA, Q-tips, and pipe cleaners. Man, it sounded like I upgraded the whole system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted December 3, 2002 Share Posted December 3, 2002 Isopropyl Alchohol does nothing to improve conductivity between 2 non-hardwired metal surfaces other than helping to remove some surface contamination. IPA is not all that "pure" either. If it were, you could drink it like other "well-known" forms of alcohol . There are still contaminents in there. Thats why its for "external use only". (Its not even good to clean dirty vinyl records with it. Use something like Smirnoff Silver for that & afterwards treat the records with a lubricant such as groove glide because the alcohol will "dry the vinyl" causing it to loose some its natural "slippery" qualities.) Unlike IPA which merely "cleans" the metal connections, a product like ProGold G5 also contains deoxidizers, preservatives, conductivity enhancers, arcing & RFI inhibitors, and anti-tarnishing compounds. It is effective on similar or dissimilar metals. When a treated and untreated connector mate, ProGold migrates to both. When the connectors separate, ProGold recoats both exposed metal surfaces providing continued preservative protection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted December 3, 2002 Share Posted December 3, 2002 Hmmm. Thanks for the heads up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShapeShifter Posted December 3, 2002 Share Posted December 3, 2002 Caig products, as stated earlier. They are a favoriate of mine for maintenance and cleaning. Haven gotten good results with their DeoxIT deoxidation cleaner, and ProGold conditioning solution for metal contacts and connectors. Radio Shack's Tuner Cleaner works well for lubricating tuner controls too. These are the essential items I use to clean & condition items such as; tube pins, sockets, speaker connections/terminals and control/switching parts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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