^^^ geoffkait ...
There is a definite improvement right off the bat, very similar to installing a whole complement of SR Blue fuses. With nothing else done, at four weeks there is an additional breakthrough in SQ.
Between the four week and eight week time span, I was in the hospital and rehab hospital recovering from heart surgery. So ... I hadn’t turned the system on for over four weeks. That took me slightly beyond the eight week jump. When I got home and took my first listen, the eight week phenomenon had already set in. In my system, it was amazing.
Everything was the same ... all the things we like about audio. Still tonally correct. BUT now there was a super clarity that I had not experienced in ANY audio system before except in Randy Cooley’s room at the Newport show a few years ago. Could it have been his 150k turntable, 10k arm, 10k cartridge, the Vandersteen 7’s, and his super ARC reference electronics causing all of that transparency, who knows? All I know is that I’m getting a healthy taste of that sound now with a far, far, more modest system. I heard a bit of it on both of Steve’s systems yesterday after pasting his electronics and speaker cables with the Total Contact.
Steve is raving about the gain in SQ that yesterday brought him. He’s just scratching the surface. If he gets the same clarity I did at eight weeks, and I’m confident he will, he’s in for a real treat.
So, to address your concerns >>> Nope, no other changes between the four weeks and eight weeks in my case. I didn’t even clean the contacts before applying the Total Contact. Nothing. Nada.
Frank