Contact cleaners/What's good?

I recently used Iso alcohol to clean a noisy connection on my amp's selector pot and it worked fine and eliminated the static. I found the info in an old thread at this site. My main concern (other than being mental) is pollution in the LA area that noticeably coats everything within a manner of weeks (we do not use AC and keep the windows open a lot even during the winter). If I take a tea pot or dish out of a closed cupboard and run my finger over it the pollution grunge will make a streak and as I said before it accumulates very quickly. I cover my seldom used connections with tin foil in the hope that corrosion will not take place (probably should pick up the cheap caps made for this purpose but never seem to get around to it). From the comments so far I may try the Kontact as to try something new this time round and may just try plain denatured alcohol on the tube sockets as I can see no risk in this. I had not even thought about petrol products being used in some of the preservatives, but realize that they must leave something behind in order to offer protection. Thanks. PS: I now have one negative vote, I wonder who the little ahole was?:-)

PS: Thanks for the Galen info. I had lost their site during are last computer crash and could not remember the name.

Just a bit of info. Rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol with other "stuff" added (anything from mineral oil, to eucalytus extract, to artificial color, etc). Denatured alcohol is ethanol with chemical additives to discourage folks from drinking it. There are MANY types of denatured alcohols which vary in the type of "denaturant" added. The most common is a substance called Bitrex which makes it taste..bitter and causes you to spit it out before you swallow it. Many other things can be used as denaturants ranging from methanol to essential plant oils. For the most part, the denatured alcohol you can buy in stores is the so called SDA 40 A denatured w/ Bitrex. No clue what this does to audio connections, however. Generally, the shorter the chain length in the alcohol, the better a solvent it is. Thus, methanol (one carbon) is a "better" solvent than ethanol (2 carbons) which is better than isoproyl (3 carbons) and so on. Methanol is difficult to come by since it is quite harmful if ingested (e.g.you drink cheap vodka and get a headache, that's caused by residual methanol in the booze, driven by sloppy distillation). Doing shots of pure methanol WILL kill you. Anyway..back to my point, if you want to try solvents instead of "audiophile" cleaning solutions, your best bet is to use pure isopropyl or try to buy research grade solvents from a chemical supply company like Aldrich, Fischer, etc. For the really adventurous, there ARE other solvents with good cleaning properties which leave zero residue upon drying, most notably the Glycol Ethers made by Dow Chemical Corporation. For the pragmatic amongst you, buy the highest proof, most expensive vodka you can find and alternate cleaning with swigs from the bottle. Not as good as isopropyl to clean since 100 proof vodka is 50 % ethanol and 50 % water..but likely a lot more fun. As for me...I'm lazy and just use Kontakt. Though I've not analyzed it, smell tells me Kontakt contains a healthy dose of isopropyl mixed with a ketone (likely methyl ethyl ketone)..and who knows what else

Alexc, thanks for the above post. Had a great laugh about the vodka bottle. However, I can only imagine that all the wires somehow might not be in the right place once the job is done and the bottle finished. ... Now for another laugh.I am really sensitive to smells and dont like cleaning with anything that smells like alcohol so I use Brut cologne. About 11 years ago when looking for a cleaning solution for my tape heads I borrowed my roommate's found it worked great. It doesn't seem to ruin anything,smells better than alcohol, and I can't seem to see any residue. Thr price is right too. cheers steve

be careful about using anything containing even small amounts of water on tape heads - they rust!