For purposes of comparison, I chose the Arvo Pärt track, Spiegel im Spiegel from the Lisa Batiashvili album Echoes Of Time (DGG UCCG-1524/477 9299) an outwardly simple piece for violin and piano, its very gentleness and studied pacing both a challenge to a system’s precision and its expressive depth. It’s beautiful music, played beautifully and it should sound beautiful. Inserting the uncleaned RCA leads into the system before listening, the sound was murky, compressed and sluggish, somewhat muddled and smeared. Swapping to the leads and amplifier input sockets cleaned with the DeoxIT introduced an immediate sense of focus and heightened detail. The recording literally sounded cleaner. Note-weight and length, instrumental harmonics and textures were significantly improved. The soundstage was more transparent and developed, leading edges crisper and tails better defined. All as expected from past experience.
The next step (at least as far as the review process was concerned) was to apply the Super TMD fluid to the cleaned connections to see if it improved things further. The fluid itself is contained in a small vial, with a screw cap and plastic plug. Unlike some contact cleaners, this is a thick, milky liquid, something that makes it easy to handle and apply, especially using the small brush supplied along with the mini Q-tips. What surprised me was that applying the TMD, especially to tight spaces like RCA pins and slots on the IEC connectors, the Q-tips came away dirty – even after rigorous cleaning with DeoxIT. The TMD lifts even more grime from your contacts.
With plugs and sockets treated with a single coat of TMD, I waited ten-minutes to let the fluid dry and then had a listen. Once again, the sonic and musical improvement was easily heard. In one sense it was a continuation on the same path established by the DeoxIT cleaner, but that isn’t the whole story. Yes, the recording took another step up in clarity and resolution, harmonic and textural definition. But the musical impact of that increased clarity was far more profound. The increased space around and between notes, the greater sense of shape and centre, the more natural attack and decay all created a significant increase in not just the poise and delicacy in the playing, but the relationship between the players. Grimaud’s weighting and the careful modulation in her attack, the piano’s mass and complexity, Batiashvili’s bow pressure and draw, the astonishing control she exhibits, the now explicit difference in height between the instruments: they all add to the sense of performance and human agency. The presentation is more convincing and natural, the playing better but also more human and expressive. If the DeoxIT cleaner’s benefits are most obviously sonic, the combination of the cleaner and the Super TMD moves those benefits firmly into the realm of the musical.
