Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
I should do it more often.
One of the surprisingly effective
Another great example of the placebo effect!! I nominate high end audiophiles as the most receptive placebo effect group ever! If anyone ever invented a drug to improve hearing, the drug trials would never be conclusive due to audiophiles "imagining" improvements.
My cable jungle makes the Amazon seem like a topiary garden, and my cabinet is equally inaccessible, so I need to be highly motivated to clean my connections. I have a five channel analog preamp, a separate five-channel digital preamp, a separate surround sound processor, etc. I usually wait until I have a severe case of "new equipment fever" before I endeavor to clean all the connections (or at least the ones I can reach), and then miraculously my fever usually goes away.
While it may be an effective tweak, cleaning my systems' connectors and interconnects would be a most serious undertaking. It would require the disassembling of multiple components and peripheral equipment. An incredible amount of effort for what might be a marginal return. Hmmm, on the other hand, if I were to start tonight (Tuesday) I could be enjoying the fruits of my labor by the weekend.
In my opinion there is no need to clean XLR-connections or gold-plated speaker conections, and little need to clean gold plated Cinch-connections. There is a greater risk to wear out the Cinch-plugs, if you use gold-plated and exact plugs.
I clean the terminations as frequently as possible. Accumulating dust creates a significant amount of distorion and an attendant heightening of the system's noise floor. In short, putting a little time and effort into getting the connectors clean will yield considerable sonic improvements.
I seem to live on a place where dust is king, despite constant cleaning. Each time I have to clean the surroundings of my system I get aware of the level of dirt and grime that my interconnects are exposed to. A clean rag and some contact cleaner later, you can hear the difference.