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Dialectric grease any thoughts

Hello everyone, I recently purchased new interconnects(1 meter pair XLR balanced) and the company who makes them recomends "the use of contact enhancement fluid or dialectric grease on all electrical contact serfaces, including audio signal connectors and a-c power plugs and sockets." I am skeptical to use dialectric grease on the XLR plugs and outlets, if I don't like it- it may prove to be difficult to remove if not impossible. I've heard of others who have had good results with it on Power cords, but was told not to do it to the signal cables, and now this company is telling me to use it- so confusing! shed some light on my situation. ~Tim
tireguy
bob_bundus
1,834 posts
 
What's strange about that scenario Tom is that Ultraconnect etc. is supposed to *remove* all of the crusty stuff, leaving nothing behind. It seems that because the solvent did impart a sonic signature of its own, that in fact the solvent did leave some detrimental residue behind. It's NOT suppposed to do that of course.
Lucky for me I have 2 new full bottles of their original formula + the remainder of my original bottle. But I'll keep XLO's TPC in mind for the future in case I decide to try that vs. the highly recommended Kontact.
unsound
6,115 posts
 
I'm quite ignorant about all this, but didn't Theta recommend some kind of goop for AT&T glass connections?
albertporter's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
albertporter
4,927 posts
 
Unsound, yes they did, and I still have some. In the case of fiber optics, this was a light conductive substance designed to improve the light transmission of the connection.

Idea being similar at first glance, but electrically very different.
unsound
6,115 posts
 
Alberporter, was there concern that this goop would attract dust or other undesirable substances that would deteriorate the cable, connections or otherwise interfere with transmission? Did it require special periodic cleansing? What happened to this type of transmission? Seemed like there was a lot of noise (sorry) about it a while back. It was a fairly expensive option at the time. Just curious.
albertporter's avatar
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albertporter
4,927 posts
 
At the time I was only interested in making my Theta, Wadia combo sound better and didn't think about potential problems. There were no symptoms of cable or connector deterioration during the year or so that I owned it. However, that is probably too short a test to be definitive.

As for cleaning, the connector did sound better with the goop on than off, so once we removed it the second round of testing it remained on the connection until sold.

I have since come to the conclusion that hard wire is the way to go. There are so many good digital links now, I would not worry about this old technology.
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