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.
"the carpathian": When fair and legitimate questions are asked and no answers to any of them are given, why wouldn’t you ask them again?...How is wanting to know why no kind of guarantee is given on a product an illegitimate question? Is there a standard number of times a question may be asked before it delegitimizes itself?...I was trying to get straight up answers to straight up questions,
In your world there is no reason not to ask the same question again and again and again and again and again and again I understand that. As to your search for knowledge and grappling with the concept that not everything in life is delivered to you with a colorful bow and money back guaranty I encourage you to continue your education beyond high school and either get a degree or expertise in a trade this will help you afford the products that you inquire about here with such persistance. You have no reason at all to be embarrassed here that you cannot afford this product for many families in many parts of the world that would be a years worth of food! I now beleive that you are sincere but just not in a positon where this is an option for you but you seem to be energetic and persistent and that will serve you well in life! I wish you a good day as well!
I’m afraid you’ve read too much into my dishonesty comment, and I don’t mean any disrespect in this response to you, so please don’t read too much into it either.
People IN GENERAL are not inherently dishonest ... but SOME people are. What am I basing that opinion on? 50 years of experience in the people business ... 100% commissioned sales. Here’s a good example:
Question to my seller: "How’s the roof ... any leaks?" Seller’s answer: "Oh no, the roof is fine, we just had it tuned up."
Buyer moves in. First rain and I get the dreaded phone call ... "Hey Frank, my roof is leaking like a sieve. I went up into the attic and there’s a bunch of buckets up there trying to catch the leaks!!! I’m getting an attorney!!! I’m going to sue the SOB who sold me the house." Well, of course, the seller is now living across the country in Tennessee and will be impossible to collect from.
Or how about this one when I was newer and more naive? ... Seller has moved out and living in Northern California leaving me to market the house in Southern California:
Me: "Hey Joe, the city inspector says that the kitchen needs a new garbage disposal and the bathroom needs the electrical outlet to be upgraded."
My seller: Oh, crapolla. I won’t have any money until escrow closes."
Me: "No problem Joe, I’ll pay for the parts and the handyman. You can pay me back when escrow closes."
My seller: "You’re a real gem Frank. Thanks a lot. I’ll recommend you to all of my friends."
Close of escrow comes, the reimbursement money never comes. One phone call to the seller and the response was ... "well, why don’t you drive up here to Northern California and try to collect it, sucker!"
Here’s another one ...
Seller was an FBI agent. He freshly painted the living room downstairs to make the house more presentable. When he moved out, escrow was closed and we discovered that he had painted around the couch and was too damned lazy to move it and paint behind it. No matching paint could be found. The buyer had to repaint the entire living room.
Oh and then there’s the old trick of placing a throw rug on the carpet to hide the spaghetti sauce stain that won’t come out of the carpet ... and now a complete carpet replacement is required ... after the seller is moved an currently living who knows where?
Everyone of the above examples is the truth. I don’t know how long its been since the last time you’ve bought or sold a home, but this is the reason the files are about a foot thick these days ... made up mostly of disclosure statements. Those disclosures aren’t there to protect the pubic from the brokers .. they are there to protect the public from each other.
Put up with that over a 40 year real estate career and you soon learn that SOME people are dishonest. MOST people wouldn’t have lied about the roof, and MOST people would have reimbursed me for my out of pocket expenses that were used to fix their deferred maintenance. MOST people would have moved the couch and painted behind it, and MOST people don’t hide carpet stains under throw rugs. SOME do though.
randy-11 See p. 1 for Tweak comments - and many other pages
No listening tests + no science + high prices... what does that add up to???
>>>>All I see are positive comments by you and Frank. So, Frank doesn’t like Quicksilver Gold, doesn’t know you can’t get QG anymore but, like you, thinks Tweek is great. I guess that puts me in the color me suspicious camp. 🙄 I had Tweek. That’s how I know it turns into greenish black goop. That’s science, Junior!
What does a 5 second Google search turn up?
“Be very careful using this stuff as tended to gum things up and/or caramelise when dumped in places like tube sockets.”
“Nasty stuff, I can’t tell you the number of RCA jacks that I have seen that once had Tweek on them and the chemical damaged....looking at the jacks under magnification looked like the gold plating had been "blasted" off the substrate....”
“The biggest disaster was the original Tweak (sic), a contact enhancer which was especially good at boosting bass. After many months it turned to goo on your contacts, screwed up the sound and was a real hassle to get off.”
Old adage Randy ... you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can fool all of the people all of the time. Nice try, but no Kewpie Doll.
Hey, how 'bout lightening up a bit and being more respectful to your fellow A'goners before the mods crack down?
Sorry, Frank, it was Tom, not you. On page 1 of this thread. So, it’s Tom whose street cred just went down a notch. 😟 One assumes when Randy suggests comparing Graphene contact enhancer to Tweek blind it’s so you won’t see the black color of the Tweek goop. 💩
theaudiotweak 12-25-2017 6:03pm Original tweek was great product. This goes way beyond anything I remember of tweek.
I just love Paul Desmond. Never had the chance to hear those guys live though, Their home base was up around San Francisco. They played there a lot. I spent a lot of my high school daze at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach though. Want to hear some amazing West Coast jazz? Check these guys out:
I also use Herbies tube dampeners. It’s another tweak one can hear immediately. I also use a Herbie anti vibration donut (like a miniature cd mat) around the spindle area of my modded VPI TNT VI. However. I tried his older CD mat but it no effect with my EAR Acute CD player, I also use a Walker Talisman demagnetizer on all CDs and LPs before I play them. It’s $200 for a pair of magnets but it is uber convenient and works. It is more subtle than my other tweaks but certainly improves the sound every play
Is it ever going to occur to you that you're way over matched here and becoming quite stale. Plus, you're outnumbered at this point. Its time to end the banter and start treating people around here with respect and decency. In other words, you're becoming a boring troll. No offense dude ... but its the truth. If you can't turn yourself around, then take the high road like "PS" did ... or perhaps just hit the road.
Do you have any music to recommend other than Rap and Metal? Come on ... surely you listen to music, right? Inquiring minds want to know.
Tweek was great 37 years ago..compared to what..I don' t remember. I never had Tweek gunk up..but I think there was a reformulation that sounded less in quality than the first episode.Quicksilver sounded good to me but did gunk up and dry out. You may have had a different experience with different products. My responses are based on my first hand experience and my accrued audio memory. Honest .Tom
Trolls run down and ridicule things they have zero experience with, and no real interest in trying, in order to stir up controversy for their own amusement. That's exactly what you’re doing here, and have a history of doing elsewhere.
Funny again, tommylion. I have no experience with a lot of scams and useless, ineffective tweaks. That I have no experience likely says more about my smarts than your gullibility and risk taking.
This thread (I’ve read all 9 pages) has been a shambolic and quite horrible waste of time for all concerned. Yes, there has been a lot of trolling but the way that it has been responded to has been quite disappointing also. There has been, in the middle of all this cr*p, some genuine requests for information and answers have not been forthcoming for whatever reason. That doesn’t really help the cause of the product regardless of its merit. The best thing for the vendor to do and for the genuine enquirer might be to stop the endless to and thro and wait until the 15th (or whatever date transpires) to put a full suite of information up on the interwebs for all to see. P.S. I own a tube of Mad Scientist Graphene solution. Yes it is messy as hell, but that is simply a bi-product of the fact that it is in an oil solution and you simply work around that in the same way that you use common sense when painting or soldering or other potentially messy activities. It has been on parts of my system for the better part of a year with no degradation (To answer that concern). The most significant use I put it to was on the end ends of some Dueland tinned copper speaker cable that I then clamped solid copper spades on to (compression fixing with grub screws). The results were, on a purely subjective level, very positive. I noted that when I set up the cables with bare ends, after about 2 days the sound went from very detailed to very muffled. Presumably this was due to oxidisation of the tin - I live in a semi tropical climate which is about 15kms from the sea. I applied the graphene and it was initially a little bit bright sounding (subjective). After about 2 days this settled down and over the last 4 months I now have a lovely sound from the cables (again subjective). No DBT or other measurements of this I’m afraid. I am thinking about getting a multimeter that can read very low resistances and doing some before and after tests just to inform myself about whether there is any measurable difference after the treatment. It would be nice to find some change as I think I can hear a change - and I hope it can backed up in some way with measurements. I do trust my ears and those of my friends but I always like to have some datum to have on hand so that I don’t get whacked over the head by objectivists.
randy-11 - Graphene is attracting a lot of attention due to it’s inherent strength, its ability to provide lubrication whilst providing a highly conductive interface and its very high conductivity. I think it shows a real lack of intellectual honesty to write-off graphene as a technology just because you disagree with the merit on one audio-tweak product that at this stage you have no experience with. The fact that industry giants are investing billions in developing and investigating graphene worldwide makes your comments look like a cheap shot and on top of that makes them look lame as they deliberately ignore the facts.
Dynaquest4 - until you have some evidence that this product doesn't work (by testing it yourself or through others testing it scientifically) then you cannot characterise it as a scam or useless. And I think the term "troll" can be applied to a lot of the posts on here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll As tommylion puts it, you are simply here to stir up trouble. It seems you have no genuine interest in this product and have already decided that it is a scam yet you pepper the conversation with inflammatory remarks. If it smells like a Troll and acts like a Troll..............
Deeperthought: although late, welcome to the conversation. Jumping in and immediately, on your first post, calling me a troll is a bit presumptive.
You said: "The fact that industry giants are investing billions in developing and investigating graphene worldwide..." OK, hotshot, can you back up that factoid with a genuine reference?
While my remarks might seem to you to be inflammatory, they are likely that only because they question/disagree which the theme of this forum and the general populous here. If you want a forum where everybody agrees with you, perhaps you joined the wrong one last night.
thecarpathian
@clearthink, actually one more thing before I forever ignore your existence...surely you wouldn’t mind purchasing it for me, and I will send you $4.
I would rather contribute to your college fund, if you have one. Are your grades good? Have your parents setup a fund for you please feel free to have them PM me through the site.
I can’t Geoff, it got deleted! Although I am a skeptic, I wish Tim well with his graphene product. @oregonpapa, Frank, good luck in all your audio endeavors, and life in general. I allowed myself to get carried away with my sniping and other such foolishness. You seem like a good guy. And I promise I’m not near as big a jerk as I sometimes sounded. I am out....
When a post is deleted, it is likely because someone reported it using the "report this" link on each post and then the moderators determined the chosen reason applied and then actually deleted it.
So a deleted post means someone objected for a valid reason but not necessarily the moderators.
One can also delete their own posts within 30 minutes after posting.
I had two posts deleted recently too. I thought they were rather benign, similar to yours. mapman is correct about the "report" button. It could have been used by someone who feels he has lost the argument, and as a result, has fallen out of favor here.
Human nature, while very interesting, can be totally weird sometimes. Envy and jealousy are terrible emotions to have. When denied, some become vindictive and turn to destruction. I think THAT is the intent of a few who post here.
Thanks for the well wishes. The launch date for the new product is very soon, so that will be exciting.
Rest assured Carp, I don't think you're a "jerk" at all. In fact, you're one of the good guys. Plus, you can write well and express your thoughts well. I appreciate that.
I wish you would stick around to observe the results as the Total Contact starts getting out into the general public. Once it does, the positive reports will far outweigh any attempt the arsonists make in their effort to burn Tim's business down to the ground. Its THAT good.
it is true "that industry giants are investing billions in developing and investigating graphene worldwide..." but such R&D has NOTHING to do with audio contacts
Well done Frank! You can't respond any better than that. Just continue to write about anything that will benefit to your target audience. I believe you are fully recovered now by your activities in this thread:) Take care.
@randy-11 Wish I understood why you are so bothered by this thread. If there are folks who want to buy what Frank is endorsing, what's it to you? They will make a decision whether to part with the $ for the HC contact enhancer or they won't.
Personally, I've had some really good tweak experiences that were remarkably cost effective and some rather costly tweaks that were last than satisfying. In the end I had only myself to congratulate or blame.
Scroll through the pages in this thread. Almarg researched the patents and came up with two. No website either, and that’s been covered in an earlier post. So ... nothing smells. Release date in a few days and it will be sold though Audiogon.
Here’s Almarg’s findings with a link: "The only patents I could find in a search of both granted patents and patent applications at uspto.gov, using "Mrock" as the search term, were these two. "
Those patents look good and comprehensive for the product. Just another justification plus the industrial experience of its use (medical equipment/power sources).
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