Contacts like RCA plugs of cables, RCA sockets on amp or DAC or CDP, binding posts on amp and speakers, etc?
Many of us use connectors and sockets which are supposedly gold plated. Some fancier equipments and cables come with silver connections.
First, an honest confession: I never even thought it necessary to clean gold plated contacts till a friend asked me to help him clean up his contacts. I understand and accept that silver contacts oxidise and require periodic cleaning. He has a contact cleaning fluid (I forgot the brand or model but it's French made). We started working on the connectors of his amp. All RCAs and binding posts on this amp are WBT gold plated. For some reason all the RCA sockets were covered in a dark layer which was extremely difficult to rub off with cloth damped with his cleaning fluid. It took many rounds of rubbing to get an acceptable surface, but we could not achieve a shiny, like-new finish and had to be content with what we could achieve because more rubbing was likely to scrape off the thin layer of gold plating.
The balanced connectors had what looked like chrome plated pins and sockets and those were shiny as new.
Next we cleaned his RCA plugs. Since most of his cables are not old, they didn't suffer from dark deposits BUT when cleaned with ear buds dipped in cleaning fluid, the ear buds became grey with the deposited dirt.
His speaker cables are terminated in WBT pure silver spades and those had light oxidation which came off with light sanding with very fine sand paper (at least 800 must be used, but 1500 is less abrasive).
My point being: we spend so much money buying fancy cables (and amps and DACs and whatnot) but are we utilizing them to their potential?
I was inspired to check my own cables (mix of gold plated and high purity silver) and sockets. Luckily I don't see signs of oxidation except on speaker binding posts, but I will clean them all one of these days.
Many of us use connectors and sockets which are supposedly gold plated. Some fancier equipments and cables come with silver connections.
First, an honest confession: I never even thought it necessary to clean gold plated contacts till a friend asked me to help him clean up his contacts. I understand and accept that silver contacts oxidise and require periodic cleaning. He has a contact cleaning fluid (I forgot the brand or model but it's French made). We started working on the connectors of his amp. All RCAs and binding posts on this amp are WBT gold plated. For some reason all the RCA sockets were covered in a dark layer which was extremely difficult to rub off with cloth damped with his cleaning fluid. It took many rounds of rubbing to get an acceptable surface, but we could not achieve a shiny, like-new finish and had to be content with what we could achieve because more rubbing was likely to scrape off the thin layer of gold plating.
The balanced connectors had what looked like chrome plated pins and sockets and those were shiny as new.
Next we cleaned his RCA plugs. Since most of his cables are not old, they didn't suffer from dark deposits BUT when cleaned with ear buds dipped in cleaning fluid, the ear buds became grey with the deposited dirt.
His speaker cables are terminated in WBT pure silver spades and those had light oxidation which came off with light sanding with very fine sand paper (at least 800 must be used, but 1500 is less abrasive).
My point being: we spend so much money buying fancy cables (and amps and DACs and whatnot) but are we utilizing them to their potential?
I was inspired to check my own cables (mix of gold plated and high purity silver) and sockets. Luckily I don't see signs of oxidation except on speaker binding posts, but I will clean them all one of these days.