New Tweak --- Its Fantastic


THE NEW TWEAK

Over the good part of this past year I’ve been beta testing a new tweak, the name of which is "Total Contact." Its a hi-bred graphene contact enhancer that is different from all other contact enhancers that have come and gone for one reason or another. I’m not new to these contact enhancers, having had quite a bit of experience with a product developed by the late Brian Kyle and his "Quick Silver" contact enhancer. The "Total Contact" is different ... a LOT different.

"Total Contact" is graphene based and is not a vibration control. It eliminates micro-arching between two contacts. Micro-arching, much like Micro-vibration smears the sound in our stereo systems. Its the type of distortion that we don’t know is there .... until we eliminate it. There is no break-in as we know it. The sound is improved right off the bat, but what you hear is only a smidgen of what’s to come.

I tested three generations of "TC," each of which was an improvement over the previous incarnation. The final mix was cryogenitically treated and made for a more effective, much smoother application. It comes in a large hypodermic needle type plunger containing 1.5 ml of product and includes a instructional DVD and an application brush.

The application should be applied with a very thin coat to all of your electrical connections .... from your cartridge pins to your power cords. I did my entire system, including the ends of my fuses.

Upon initial application, you will notice an improvement in clarity, correctness of tonal balance and a more overall organic sound. But ... that is just scratching the surface of what this magic paste does. As it cures, the improvements become more apparent. Much more!

There are two real break-through events that happen almost to the day with "Total Contact," one at four weeks and another at eight weeks . At four weeks, you’ll get a real jump in clarity and overall improvement. That’s only a taste though of what’s to come at eight weeks. At eight weeks your system’s focus will make a jump in SQ that is so real - its surreal.

After 40 years in the hobby, and a total tweak nut, I have never heard anything that does what this graphene paste does. The see-through clarity at eight weeks becomes simply amazing. The "paste" eventually cures into a kind of polymer plastic and it seems that the sound improves with each listening session. So, its important that you leave your contacts alone for the duration. If you’re the type of person that continually switches wires in and out, you’ll have to re paste until enough time has elapsed to get "the cure."

The only problem I had was with the first batch and that had to do with shorting out a tube pin in the line stage. Use the "TC" very sparingly on tube pins, if at all. I only had problems with the line stage tube pins. The Amp, CD Player and Phono Stage has had no tube pin problems at all.

Tim Mrock, one of our fellow A’goners, is the developer of the product. Its taken Tim 15 years and several patents to get it right. Tim has "pasted" every electrical contact he can find in his audio system, all of the switches in his circuit breaker box, every contact in his car ... and has used it in commercial applications such as hospital circuit breakers, surgical lights ... and other places where efficiency and long life of electrical components are deemed important.

This product is highly recommended to anyone who truly wants to get the most out of his/her audio systems. There’s enough product in each tube to do at least two audio systems as it just takes a very thin coat on each application to be effective. The last tube was enough to do my system twice and then a friend’s system this past weekend.


Frank

PS: There were a couple of other A’goner beta testers of this product as well. Hopefully, they will chime in here with their experiences for comparison. I "pasted" both of Steve Fleschler’s systems a few days ago, perhaps he will comment on his results too. We forgot to paste Steve’s power cords though, so there’s a lot more to be had from Steve’s two fantastic systems.

Frank
128x128oregonpapa

I was slow on the upswing, as the memory of removing dried, caked-up Walker SST from the inside of tube sockets had been a kind of audio PTSD. Learning that TC doesn’t age badly like that, together with good advice from Agon member audiotweak, encouraged me to try it. This weekend I began with applications inside DIY power cords at the compression fit between stranded 10awg silver conductors and Furutech FI-48 and FI-50 plugs. These cords have a significant impact on the sound of a modified Pass Labs XP-25 phono stage and a Hynes SR-7 linear power supply with multiple DC rails into a rubidium master clock, a SOtM Ethernet-to-USB converter, SOtM USB regenerator, and a Merlin BBAM line-level bass equalizer.

Out of the chute there is a richer more organic presence region, expanded LF, and sweeter treble with less etch. Images are denser and more embodied. All good things.

I’ve been recording vinyl to DSD on a modified Tascam DA-3000, and am always on the look-out for improvements to this unit. With the help of a desktop magnifier lamp and a pointy, hard cotton make-up applicator, TC was sparingly applied to internal fuses and the many pins of cables and connector blocks inside the Tascam. Most of these distribute AC and DC power to the PCBs. If you’re using TC on power cords, at least take a look at treating any connectors inside electronics from the IEC to the transformer. I wouldn’t attempt this with flat ribbon cables, as TC will smear between their tiny parallel traces.

The improvement in the digital recordings was immediate, with effects similar to the power cords.

Next I’ll try treating low-level signal from cartridge pins to phono stage.

Excellent product!

I assume you pasted the wire conductors at the tips as you could not easily paste the actual Furutech connector tabs.  
I heard a system that had been treated weeks ago with TC which I really liked previously. My gut take on it: the mids to highs where slightly more vivid, the low level information which I thought was very good seemed deminished, His system was very neutral before and had “darkened tonally” very slightly! Your mileage may vary!
Yes. I  could have treated the tabs but didn't need to. The 10awg bundle of ten 20awg silver strands is divided at the termination into two twists of five strands each. That "fork" of two wires slips nicely into both sides of the Furutech fitting, so that it clamps evenly on both sides of its screw. With just five strands in a twist, it was possible to work TC fully into each wire bundle without unfurling it.  That's a good thing, as it avoided the potential metal fatigue of untwisting and re-twisting the thin 20awg strands.  
@tomfoolery

Thanks for sharing. What is interesting to me is how my own system sounds different from day to day or even daypart to daypart. This is real for all of us as our mood changes, level of general physical fatigue, emotional or stress factors etc... Add to that humidity levels from one day to the next and we have yet to even talk about quality of AC and how that changes hour to hour etc.....  

Just too many factors to really make a one moment in time conclusion on any system. One must live with a system long term before they can really accurately detimine long term sonic changes.  

Goodness, we also have poor sonic memory in an A/B testing situation with just minutes between cuts, never mind days or weeks.