[mulveling]

I got my K1000 Equinox cable from Todd last week, but haven't gotten around to the package until today. It's an absolutely beautifully constructed cable! EXCEPT for the silver-grayish, greasy goop the spade connectors are coated in. The information sheet states: Quote:

Please remove the connectors from the protective sleeve and connect them to the amplifier taking care not to remove the contact stabilizer solution. After installing the K1000 cable, the connectors should remain connected to the amplifier.

Now I have a couple problems with this. First, I'd rather not get my amp's binding posts greasy, even if it is wonder-goop, and even if my amp isn't really all that valuable. Second, at least for a little while, this amp will not be dedicated to the K1000 alone - it'll be shared by the LSi15 speakers in my HT, and I will be swapping connections between the two a few times a week (I know it's not ideal). The difference in volume between the K1000 and LSi is not entirely insignificant, so I don't want to leave the K1000 connected to the amp permanently for fear of overdriving the K1000 during movies.

So which of my two options are best here:

Should I remove the goop and deal with the loss of contact stabilization on the K1000? How much of a performance hit, if any, could I expect?

Or, should I leave the goop on and deal with greasy contacts and breaking the manual's "connectors should remain connected" rule? Would my speaker coonections (bananas) take a performance hit from the residual goop when the K1000 is diconnected?

I'm stupid AND paranoid here; please help me

 

[Jeff Wong]

I suspect the silver-greyish greasy goop is something similar to Arctic Silver, which is used to ensure a better interface between heatsinks and CPUs in computers. As long as it's the real deal, with some silver (unlike a brand that was recently discovered to have no metal content whatsoever, but, did make good after this was discovered), it will fill in any gaps and in theory make for greater surface contact. I doubt it will harm anything. If you opt to remove it, you can use contact cleaner.

 

[Melchior]

If that's the case then hopefully the binder isn't similar, since arctic silver is non-conductive (but quite capacitative) unless under exceedingly high pressure, and even then it wouldn't conduct as well as two clean contacts. It's called stabilizing solution though, I wonder if it isn't to prevent corrosion between dissimilar metals?