Cables & Accessories

It’s a good time to think about sprucing up your hi-fi and cleaning up your contacts can make a big difference to its sound. The official designation of DeoxIT Gold contact conditioner/enhancer is G100L-2C, which is handy to know as Caig makes so many variants. It comes in a tiny 2ml tube, meaning you need to use it very sparingly indeed; I employ a pipe cleaner to apply it to my RCA phono sockets, inside pins of my balanced XLRs and even the IEC mains socket pins of my hi-fi – disconnected from the mains to avoid risk of electric shock, of course.

It is essentially a cleaning solution that’s said to improve conductivity and give long-lasting protection on gold, base metals and other precious metal contacts and connections (gold, silver, rhodium, copper, bronze, nickel, etc.). If your socketry is very tarnished, you’re advised to use DeoxIT Contact Cleaning Solution first. Apply it sparingly and you can see the dirt coming off on the pipe cleaner; after cleaning the socket is left with a surface that’s contaminant-free and conditioned to resist the effects of oxidation in future. 

Performance
The result is a cleaner, smoother and more open sound – even on brand new hi-fi equipment. It gives more three-dimensional space to the soundstage, better depth perspective, subtly bigger and bouncier bass and silkier treble with more midband detail too. The difference isn’t profound, but is easily recognisable. For this reason, it comes highly recommended – particularly considering the modest price. DP

DETAILS
Product: Caig DeoxIT Gold
Price: £6.95
Type: Contact cleaner
Read the full review in May issue 449