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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
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tommylion
874 posts
 
hifiman5,

My comment was not aimed at you. With lots of sarcasm flying around here lately, I too wasn’t sure at first if the post was that, or genuine.
tommylion
874 posts
 
Nickel Creek's self-titled debut album is sounding wonderful right now 😀
theaudiotweak
2,801 posts
 
On the cd topper I would say that the change is electromagnetic shielding or absorption and it could also be absorbing stray light bouncing off the cd edges and bouncing around inside the chassis. Less light emission inside means there will be less error correction required and and a less corrupted signal which means better sound. I have a cd topper that covers the top and the edges to virtually eliminate light scatter being read. Tom
tommylion
874 posts
 
On the subject of micro-arcing, I have very little technical knowlege, but the concept makes sense to me. Contact surfaces are not perfectly smooth, but have tiny pits, spaces or gaps. Why wouldn't arcing occur in them, and why couldn’t it have an effect on the musical signal?
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
theaudiotweak
On the cd topper I would say that the change is electromagnetic shielding or absorption and it could also be absorbing stray light bouncing off the cd edges and bouncing around inside the chassis. Less light emission inside means there will be less error correction required and and a less corrupted signal which means better sound. I have a cd topper that covers the top and the edges to virtually eliminate light scatter being read.

A couple of things. One is that much of the scattered light problem occurs right next to the laser on the data side of the disc.which is why coloring the data side near the spindle hole of the CD is effective. Of course, one could line the entire inside of the transport with absorbing material, you know, like turquoise colored paper.

>>>>>>Black actually is not that great an absorber of infrared light (above 700 nm) which is invisible. Colors don’t absorb outside the visible part of the spectrum. And turquoise or green absorbs visible RED scattered light, which is somewhat below the nominal wavelength of the CD laser, 780 nm. So what about the scattered light above red, above around 700 nm? The band between say, 700 nm and 850 nm.

The turquoise won’t work for near infrared. Nor will black. Not to mention the color black should never be used on the label side or the outer edge, only on the inner edge, the part that touches the spindle. It should also be mentioned that the color of the CD label graphics also affects the sound. Thus, a lot of experimentation is actually necessary to arrive at the ideal combination of colors for each CD, depending on colors used in the label graphics. Too much experimentation for this dude. I just use Green, Black and Orange. 
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