Dielectric grease on connection ends


I was changing a coil on one of my bikes earlier, and as always, applied a light film of dielectric grease on the coil outputs, and on the spark plug boots. A thought occurred to me that this may be a valid application in audio connections as well. A small amount applied with a cotton swab to bananas/spades/rca's etc. may help, and I'm thinking about giving it a go. Was wondering if this has been tried by any other members, and thoughts on the pro/con aspects.
128x128crazyeddy

Showing 3 responses by dlcockrum

Hi eddy,

I deleted my earlier post and unintentionally left your’s hanging because I called Ralph (atmasphere) Al (almarg) and couldn’t fix it by the time I noticed. They both hold the highest level of respect with me so I hope neither took umbrage at my error.

At the recommendation of a friend, I tried the Silclear silver-impregnated grease (similar to the Walker Audio product) on the male metal terminations of my power cords, ICs, and speaker cables. Messiest darn stuff I ever fooled with.

After about six months, I started having intermittent shutdowns of my preamp’s power supply and found that jiggling the IEC of the power cord "fixed" it momentarily, but then it would happen again every week or so until finally no amount of jiggling would restore AC. I removed the power cord and found a nasty sticky grungy paste all over the male plug prongs of the power supply as well as the recesses in the female IEC. Removed it with DeOxit (no easy task, that crap spread everywhere) and not only did the problem immediately disappear, but the sound of my system improved audibly. I then cleaned all of the connections thoroughly with DeOxit and then a light coat of Deoxit Gold to prevent oxidation of the exposed copper/gold/etc. My system sounded so much better immediately upon powering it back up.

Trust me, just clean those connectors good with DeOxit and then a very light application of DeOxit Gold and leave the grease in the garage.

Best to you eddy,
Dave
"BTW, if you put that Silver coating goop on you tube pins, it will sound much better fora little while. Then it hardens, is hell to get off, bakes into the tube sockets and may require socket replacements. Bill"

Yep, that's the stuff.  Glad I didn't have tubes at the time I mad the mistake of using it.

Best to you bill,
Dave