Teflon tape

[wee tee cee]

Have you ever tried?

Ye,ended in much wailing and knashing of teeth........

[AlanS]

One of the most recent tweaks I've done on my system was to clean the contacts on the power cables, interconnects, and speaker cables. This cheap and easy-to-do tweak rendered audible improvements as far as clarity, stability, and authority of the reproduced sound.

Always worth doing your housekeeping Alex,

That positive result got me thinking: obviously, contacts between the electrical outlet and the components, as well as between the components etc. seem to be important for the quality of sound. Ideally, the best quality would be achieved if there were no discontinuities, no contacts, just one long wire running through all the electrical and electronic components. Since that's not possible, the next best thing would be to ensure that the points of contact are as solid and as sturdy as they can be.

Oh dear he is thinking, careful of self devised theory and practice.

Examining some of the AC plugs in my system, I've noticed that they seem a bit wobbly and when flicking the prongs with my index finger, I could hear a slight metallic ringing. That means that there are some unwanted acoustic vibrations that must affect the electrical signal.

Ringing noises are acoustic vibrations. More importantly something MAY be loose. Did you take into account that the plug was out of the socket and could have loose fitting pins in it's moulding. The socket makes the pin solidity when it is in place

Did a bit more research on that topic and found out that there is a solution -- teflon tape! Basically, wrap the tape around the base of each prong, plug it in, and at that point the physical contact becomes much tighter. If you then unplug the AC and flick the prongs again, the metallic ringing should be dampened. OK, makes sense from the theoretical perspective -- time to give it a good old sit down and listen.

I didn't have much time last night, so I wrapped teflon tape only around the prongs on the plug for my power conditioner. Before I did that, I listened to the Beatles "I'm Only Sleeping" from "Revolver" (1966). Then I wrapped the teflon around the prongs on the AC plug for my power conditioner, plugged it back into the wall socket, and listened to "I'm Only Sleeping" once again.

Holly excrement! Talk about self-hypnosis. The bloody song now sounds different. I can hear Lennon's jangling Jumbo Gibson acoustic with such presence, that it took my breath away. McCartney's bass is now easier to follow, and I can now hear with greater ease how he weaves all those melodies and rhythmical punches. Ringo's drumming is absolutely brilliant on that song, and now his cymbals sizzle like never before. And Lennon's peerless 'fuck you' attitude is fully present in his sneering vocals.

I am pleased for you. It would have been sooo dissappointing if the sound was not different or worse.

Interesting you entertain the possibility of self hypnosis

I know I'm easily excitable and prone to exaggerations, but man, it cost me $1.29 for this teflon tape, and I can't believe the difference it makes. Tonight I'm going to teflon all of my other AC plugs, see if I get even more improvements.

This tweak is definitely worth trying; it's ultra cheap, takes just a few minutes, and may revitalize your hi fi!

Worth a try I guess especially if you live in Canada with their electrical components.

Could you post some of the things you have done that made no difference or even horrors made things worse.

I won't be buying and using the tape. But thanks for the post.

Edit:
Teflon is an insulator is it not? So one introduces as less effective metal to metal connection. Any explanations with your theory of better current path?

[worthingpagan]

I found it much easier and much more fun doing this: Get a bowl of warm / hot water, put your feet in (minus any footwear) with a little bubble bath. Make sure there is no airbourn dust in the vicinity, close the doors and windows. Open 14 cans of chilled Stella Lager and drink them quickly one after another, while allowing your system to warm up. Then load your cd's into the player, turn your amp up to around the 12.00 o'clock mark and hey presto..............the whole system sounds like a £100K valve jobby

[Alex_UK]

I found it much easier and much more fun doing this: Get a bowl of warm / hot water, put your feet in (minus any footwear) with a little bubble bath. Make sure there is no airbourn dust in the vicinity, close the doors and windows. Open 14 cans of chilled Stella Lager and drink them quickly one after another, while allowing your system to warm up. Then load your cd's into the player, turn your amp up to around the 12.00 o'clock mark and hey presto..............the whole system sounds like a £100K valve jobby

Probably best to avoid the feet in a bowl of water if you're fiddling with teflon tape on your mains plugs, though!

[magiccarpetride]

Could you post some of the things you have done that made no difference or even horrors made things worse.

This is the old tried-and-tested rite of passage for many budding audiophiles before they get accepted into the 'grownup' club of 'real' audiophiles. It would appear that the only trustworthy audiophiles, the ones who earn the respect of their peers, are the ones who claim that everything sounds the same. People who are convinced that it is not possible to improve the sound quality no matter what you try are the ones who get to wear the much coveted badge of 'objective' and 'serious' mature audiophile.

In order to impress such crowd, many sheepish novices are putting a brave face and ridiculing anyone who claims to have arrived at a better sound. They're calling 'Bullshit, that's all in your head, all these improvements.'

But since I don't give a shit about these curmudgeons, I'm not trying to pretend to be a hardened objectivist and to claim that no tweaks could ever result in any detectable change.

But to answer your question, I have made a lot of changes to my system that either didn't generate any detectable difference, or have resulted in horrible degradation. I've posted about a lot of these on this forum. One example is Stan Beresford's digital coax cable which really degraded the sound of my system. That was a colossal waste of money (and time); these things happen, and yes, more often than not, most of these tweaks turn out to be a blind alley. And as far as the neutral change (the one that didn't result in any detectable difference), Belkin interconnects come to mind -- despite the huge hoopla on this forum, I couldn't hear any difference after replacing my Nordost interconnects with Belkin (which is a good thing, because Belkin are waaaay cheaper).

[BTH K10A]

Ringing noises are acoustic vibrations. More importantly something MAY be loose.

Alex, have you tried wrapping the teflon tape around your head?

This will reduce any cranial vibration and ameliorate any ringing in the ears and has the effect of raising the quality of a £9.99 system to that of one costing £100k+ and all for the measly outlay of 89p.

[Marco]

And you can treble the effect if you wrap it around your bell-end!

Marco.

[Rare Bird]

Thats true Marco, it cuts down the skin effect aswell

[Reid Malenfant]

And you can treble the effect if you wrap it around your bell-end!

Marco.

Thats true Marco, it cuts down the skin effect aswell

Jeez, what the feck have i been missing

[BTH K10A]

Yes, I'd forgotten about the skin effect , and the tape may also safeguard against EMI effects from any increased red blood cell activity although as a dielectric it may well increase capcitance of the member