bimasta
Addicted Member
I picked up a B&K ST-1400/II power amp at a GW for $40. A score, in very good shape, 125W into 8 ohms, 165W into 4 ohms, good quality parts. Works fine, has a very good basic sound— but not great. I’d describe it as warm, musical, and “mushy” — smoothed off like a very old tube amp: lack of detail, no transient snap, slow to respond.
Looking inside, I see that all the sections (many separate PCBs) are connected by push-on plugs. Lots of them, plugs at both ends of the connective wiring. It makes for quick assembly, thus a lower selling price. But I’m convinced it compromises SQ, and replacing those plugs with hard-soldered direct connections would yield a noticeable improvement.
A friend said Caig Gold would achieve the same results — I’ve used it, and other ‘contact enhancers’ in the past and hardly noticed a difference. I used it on the cartridge pins of a LOMC, and all other connections in the Phono chain, thinking the benefits would be most noticeable with that ultra-low level signal, but I heard little change. Maybe my ears are to blame for that.
Cutting off all the plugs and soldering all the wires would be a lot of work — but who knows, it has good power output and a pleasing basic sound — the amp might go from good to great, if the missing speed and detail could be restored. It also has two switches, also on plug-in boards, one for switching from RCA to balanced inputs, the other for integrating into a Home Theater system, neither of which I need — I could bypass them as well to improve the signal paths.
Do you guys think it would be worth the effort? Do you think a contact-enhancer would help (there are at least 50–60 metal-to-metal pin-contacts so it could have a cumulative effect). Finally, do any of you have experience with the “enhanced” enhancers which suspend grains of silver between the contact surfaces? (Walker, of super-expensive turntable fame, makes one, but it’s $200, very expensive if it doesn’t help).
Many thanks for your thoughts...
Looking inside, I see that all the sections (many separate PCBs) are connected by push-on plugs. Lots of them, plugs at both ends of the connective wiring. It makes for quick assembly, thus a lower selling price. But I’m convinced it compromises SQ, and replacing those plugs with hard-soldered direct connections would yield a noticeable improvement.
A friend said Caig Gold would achieve the same results — I’ve used it, and other ‘contact enhancers’ in the past and hardly noticed a difference. I used it on the cartridge pins of a LOMC, and all other connections in the Phono chain, thinking the benefits would be most noticeable with that ultra-low level signal, but I heard little change. Maybe my ears are to blame for that.
Cutting off all the plugs and soldering all the wires would be a lot of work — but who knows, it has good power output and a pleasing basic sound — the amp might go from good to great, if the missing speed and detail could be restored. It also has two switches, also on plug-in boards, one for switching from RCA to balanced inputs, the other for integrating into a Home Theater system, neither of which I need — I could bypass them as well to improve the signal paths.
Do you guys think it would be worth the effort? Do you think a contact-enhancer would help (there are at least 50–60 metal-to-metal pin-contacts so it could have a cumulative effect). Finally, do any of you have experience with the “enhanced” enhancers which suspend grains of silver between the contact surfaces? (Walker, of super-expensive turntable fame, makes one, but it’s $200, very expensive if it doesn’t help).
Many thanks for your thoughts...
