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Cleaning and Maintenance of Connections.....

Every year or two years, I grab my cleaning kit consisting of Caig Deoxit and remove all my cables and clean my connectors, power cords, etc. It seems to make a noticeable difference in the sound quality. After cleaning, the sound tends to be rather clinical and abrasive...and then, a few days later, the system settles, and sounds amazing.

One thing I've never cleaned is the receptacles. Does anyone clean these? If so, how do you go about doing it? Turn off the breaker to the receptacle and then drop deoxit on a power cord and plug it in??? The idea of not wiping off the excess deoxit is what I don't like....Any thoughts?

Tony
calgarian5355
albertporter's avatar
albertporter
4,949 posts
 
Calgarian, Yes, Pro Gold is in spray can, I use it for speaker, XLR, and RCA. I even apply a bit on cartridge pins with a toothpick and wipe off excess with a Q Tip.

I clean about once a year or anytime I'm working on the system, such as testing something or swapping tubes.

Oh, that reminds me, I use Pro Gold on tube pins too.
dill
2,575 posts
 
In addition to DeOxit & Pro Gold, Flitz metal polish works great for power cords, copper spade lugs & binding posts.
albertporter's avatar
albertporter
4,949 posts
 
Dill,

Agreed, I use Flitz metal polish and also their lesser known product, Polier.

I've polished out power cord prongs with Flitz and then cleaned with Caig. For unplated speaker posts such as Cardas manufacturers, there's a copper cleaning gel containing Hydrofluoric Acid that works miracles. If the post is unmounted you can drop in the solution for 15 seconds, remove and wash with water. It literally looks flawless and brilliant.

If it's mounted on speaker or amp, apply the gel with Q-Tip and then wrap paper towel around the post and spray with water. I bought one of those spray bottles at Home Depot for the job, usually used to mist house plants.
hifihvn
943 posts
 
I wouldn't use any cleaner/chemicals in an outlet. These are self cleaning. Maybe unplug and plug your component once a month, just a rough guess. It depends on your climate, air leakage through the outlets etc. No cleaner is safer because you don't know if any residue will be left, or contaminant build up you may stir up that is off on the insulator part of the outlet itself. Outlet connections are self cleaning. After unplugging and replugging something back in, look at the plug and you should see a shinny line on the plugs prongs. That is the contact area, and it wiped itself down to the bare clean metal, with no contamination on the connection area. Using any cleaning chemical could leave or stir up something that can turn into a problem. I remember reading an article in Stereophile were he used a Caig cleaner on all of his IC's, and it sounded bad after ward. He had to cleaner the Caig off if memory is correct. I do use Caig myself, but mainly on switch contacts in gear itself. That is a hit or miss fix.Using a cleaner is not a sure thing.
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
there's a copper cleaning gel containing Hydrofluoric Acid that works miracles.
Hmmm. Its been a long damn time since HS chemistry, but IIRC, hydroflouric acid is extremely corrosive (eats thru glass) and dangerous to handle. I know that you know what you are doing, Albert, but for non chemically savvy 'phile, here is what Wikipedia says:
Water solutions (hydrofluoric acid) are a contact-poison with the potential for deep, initially painless burns, with later tissue death. By interfering with body calcium metabolism, the concentrated acid may also cause systemic toxicity and eventual cardiac arrest and fatality, after contact with as little as 160 cm2 (24.8 square inches) of skin.
. That's about 5" x 5".
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