Whats the go to cleaner for the sweet whispers contacts?

hron61

hron61

Member
On my fp ll the sweet whispers are kind of scratchy sounding.
I woke them from they're 20 year sleep a couple years ago and this year they started to get scratchy when i adjust the volume on both sides. Not getting any popping noise, just some brief static.
I prefer not to tear em apart if i dont have to. I know a cleaner would probably be a temp fix if it works at all and im ok with that for now.
There are alot of cleaners out there, what do you guys recommend?
 
Ultimately it will end up being worth it to just replace them with an alternative volume control. For the lowest cost option that's somewhat convenient, you can use a 10K stereo log potentiometer in one of the holes, then leave the other one empty. Use a pair of 75K resistors between the selector switch and volume pot to reduce the gain of the preamp a bit.
 
In the interim, look for a cleaner that leaves no residue at all. At least, that's the advice I've been given, and I have experienced the consequences of ignoring it :^( I believe WD-40 has a special version especially for electronics - it's on my list to acquire some.
 
Im sure replacement will happen at some point, i actually wouldnt mind spending a little bit on a decent pair. I dont mind a dual mono pot setup, in fact i prefer it on this preamp. I do want to change those boring looking knobs though, a trio of chicken head knobs would look awesome on it.
I have changed nothing on it since i assembled it in 2003. I built the full deal right off the bat and it sounded great, i took my time and followed the directions pretty much to a tee.
In fact i have the new series auricap xo's on the way to replace my original high resolution series auricaps. After the holidays i'll order the pair of wima's to replace the last ps cap, thanks for the recommend on those. I did pick up a nib rat shack 6v 800mah wallwart for the dc heater mod also.

Would have loved to snagged the fp lll when they were available back in the day.
Im going to try some cleaner for the pots for now, they really dont have that many hours on them, i listened to it for a year then life got in the way for 20 years (long story). Hopefully they just need a good cleaning, fingers crossed. Im going to try some of that wd-40 cleaner in the next few days and will update the thread with some good news hopefully.

It really is good to be back here and i have alot of catching up to do on pertinent info.
I discovered the wayback machine website also, im hoping to find old links that are long gone. Gonna stock up on ink and paper for the printer thats gonna go brrrr soon.

2wo, yep, tried that and it didnt have any effect, but i'll do it again when i spray it down with the cleaner. Fingers crossed again.
 
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hron61 said:
Would have loved to snagged the fp lll when they were available back in the day.
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Click to expand...
FWIW, FPIII was my first audio kit (I'd built a few guitar amp kits before) and I built 3 of them over the course of several years (kept one stock, added the Extended upgrade to one, built yet another upgraded one in a larger, custom-made chassis and went nuts with modifications). That last one was the preamp I used for years and years. I changed power amps a few times, but I stuck with the FPIII because I didn't see any reason to change it out.

When the Moreplay was introduced, Dan claimed it sounder better than the FPIII with its upgrade and I was skeptical. But I bought one and, sure enough, he was right.

So don't feel too bad about missing out on the FPIII.
 
They just got hetter and better with each release it sounds like.
If i wasnt in that black hole for all those years i could see myself owning each version as well. Im old now and my income is fixed so its a little difficult to splurge on my favorite hobby unfortunately, so I make do on what I own now, which by the way isn't to shabby. I just cant try the latest and greatest as they arrive.
Maybe I will save up for the moreplay and give it a try.
I wonder how it would sound with my 300b mb's?
I know the fp ll sounds great or sounded great with them but it's been 22 years since I've heard them play together. These days its solid state untill i get into a place with grounded wiring.

Getting back on track to this thread though while researching the wd-40 cleaner I ran across this one thread that raised some concern and gave good insite to cleaning vs not cleaning and what the wrong cleaner used can actually do more harm than good.
Carbon pots? Any carbon in the sweet whispers? Or plastics?
This link has some good info on cleaning pots and such.


And this that i found in a post while surfing...

(Also remember that any DC on a control can cause all manner of noise and static. Make sure your coupling capacitors aren't leaky! You can clean forever and it won't solve the problem if the coupling caps are bad.)

I can try to exercise them dry first and when I receive my new auricap xo's next week
I will install them and see if the sweet whispers are still noisy.
At this point I have no way to test caps, my dmm doesn't have that feature.
 
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