cleaning your spade connectors

For speaker cable spade connectors I would avoid using any wire brush to remove tarnish since this will always leave scratched surface and remove silver plating.

Instead dip in some Tarn-X available almost any home improvement center which will instantly remove tarnish, wipe clean then follow with your favorite contact enhancer like Kontak or Caig Pro Gold etc.

BTW I use this method on my own AP speaker cables with massive T1 silver spades.

Slappy,
I guess you don't drink Pepsi nor recommend to consume it:-)
I personally consume Aquafina or Poland Spring.

Do not use Tarnex on ANY plated metals, period. It will corrode the base metal and destroy your connectors in a very short period. Trust me on this. Tarnex can only be used safely on bare copper or silver and the connector must be rinsed thoroughly with water afterwards. Do not use this product on brass either.

Tony007 is correct with his cautions using Tarn-X/rinsing off etc. Therefore to avoid any possible problems I won't use it for silver spade cleaning in the future.

I have used Caig Deoxit in the past to clean silver spades and with some effort it works pretty good.

Your going to think I am crazy but a friend of mine just said the other day that he had a pair of Cardas Quadlink 5c's that had oxidation on them and he used toothpaste on them and it took it all off. They look like brand new?? I Tried it myself and it worked?? They look new? Give it a try it's not going to hurt anything. Good luck. let us know.
Here is a link to a thread here some time ago on the same thing.
The person who asked the same question tried the tooth paste and said it worked for him also. there are also some other godd suggestions there. Good luck let us know.
regards Brian
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?fcabl&1026630225&openusid&zzBtstrg&4&5#Btstrg