Any recommendations on cotton buds that fit the banana connector in naim amps? I bought normal ones in my local store but they are all to big.
Maybe pipe cleaners or dental brush cleaners are more suitable and is less risky.
I’ve used ‘normal’ shop-bought cotton buds more than once - Waitrose own brand, I think. There’s a bit of knack to it:
- Use brand-new buds, so the cotton is wrapped/packed tightly onto the stick. The cotton should feel almost solid to the touch before you start.
- Soak the bud in the cleaning liquid of your choice.
- Carefully but firmly push the bud into the 4mm speaker socket in the Naim amp. A bit of rotation whilst doing so helps squish the bud into the right shape.
- Once it goes in you’ll find everything gets easier since the bud is now a better fit to the socket. A bit of back, forth and rotation and you’ll see any gunk coming off.
- After a few repetitions, the cotton starts to work loose from the stick. This is where discretion is the better part of valour: get it out before anything gets left behind permanently!
- If necessary, repeat with a fresh bud until everything is clean and shiny.
Honestly, I found it much easier than I was expecting. With the above technique, care and concentration, I’ve never had anything go awry.
Mark
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And in worst case if a bud is left inside the female banana. How to get it out? 
My expectation is any difference assuming clamped tight will be low milliohms, which in my view is negligible - but actually easily checked with a reader survey, with any members reading this testing the resistance of their own connections in with a multimeter or ohmmeter.
the two are interested a survey here asking people to measure bet whilst to be meaningful of course that would need to be done in respect of all the various alternatives, including contacts between different metals - and then only really relevant if repeated after the connection made and the kept for months in an atmosphere with humidity and sulphur level of the highest likely to be encountered in practice, or better still two or three tests across a range of atmospheres, which becomes a research project.
How much they tarnish depends on the immediately local environment where the plugs are inside your house. It will vary from house to house, according to local sources of sulphur, external sources of sulphur, and humidity. In some places silver exposed to the air in a room may indeed hardly tarnish over several years, in other locations it may tarnish in a matter few months, of even weeks if someone has an open fire of lives in a polluted city.
I have not used silver plugs or sockets myself, but in one house some years ago I had a problem with nickel RCA plugs and sockets, which oxidised significantly enough to cause connection problems in less than a year, most likely due humidity arising from the location close to the base of a wall where there was rising damp, and with little air circulating behand the kit.
Puritan cables have written some interesting text related to this topic.
Regarding the importance of dielectrics in mains cables: As an insulating material silicone has an extremely low dielectric, very few materials have
lower. Dielectric can be viewed as the drag that the insulation places on electron flow at the surface of the conductor, this effect increases with
frequency. It actually has no effect at 50 or 60Hz and so choice of dielectric does not affect current delivery but if you believe it does, silicone would
be one of your No. 1 choices to avoid this. It could conversely be argued that a high dielectric value would be desirable due to its potential to
“drag” unwanted high frequencies. We have experimented with exotic and very expensive ultra high dielectric compounds but found no benefit
which was measurable by instruments or discernible in listening tests. We use our custom grade silicone for its softness, flexibility and vibration
absorption properties all of which provide tangible, easily heard, benefits.
Conductor materials: Copper is a truly great conductor so close to silver as not to matter for power cords. Where Copper is 100% conductivity Silver
is 105% Gold 70% - The conductor materials debate on mains cables is irrational. Sure, you can have pure silver conductors at a pure silver price tag
but it will not benefit your sound one iota and that cash would be better employed elsewhere in your system.
Conductor Gauge: The gauge of our conductors was determined in listening tests with a very high current demand installation in order to discern at
what point increasing conductor size ceased to bring a benefit. We then went way, way beyond that point in specifying the conductor gauge for
our cable and worked on the stranding formula to optimize the flexibility - floppiness.
Many people believe in their minds that they need 13/14AWG to be able to convey power without loss. Our density is chosen on the combination
of stranded conductors which give much more than very adequate current carrying but still having great flexibility. For the Classic cable opted for
15AWG conductors. If used for chassis wiring this cable would be rated at 28Amps, for long runs 20 Amps.
Sonically the thickness of the silicone covering the conductors and the thickness of the silicone sheath proved critical as did the degree of twist
applied to the conductors over their length and these values were established over extensive listening tests.
You will note the emphasis given to the need to have a very flexible, indeed floppy cable. Vibration distortion introduced by mains connections is a
massively underestimated phenomena; mains cables exist in the room that music is playing - therefore they are being rattled and shaken by the
music beats. Common amongst cable builders is to use heavy gauge cable with stiff metal sheathing. The stiffer the cable the more vibration it picks
up and the more efficiently it transmits, without loss, every shudder to its ends. And at each end of the cable there is a plug pin and connector clip
gripping that pin to make the contact. Introduce vibration and that contact is rubbing two metal surfaces along with the music, creating micro
disturbances in the connection and hence in the electron flow.
This is something that we know has to be avoided and that is exactly what we achieve with the flexible stranded formulation of our
conductors, very soft insulation layers, unique proprietary highly flexible proprietary shielding and loose, soft fabric covering to provide a
cable that is cushioned against picking up vibrations in the first instance and then designed to dampen and absorb those that do get through.
In contrast to the stiff metal braiding and/or metalized mylar wrappings normally used, we shield our cables with our own very unique ultra
flexible carbon-polymer nanotechnology barrier which provides a resistive shield capable not only of blocking RFI but absorbing a good amount
of it in resistive paths before it reaches the drain connection at ground.
Of vital importance is the quality of the pins, terminals and connector grips at each end of the cable and here we have paid every
attention; in particular to the gauge, form and materials quality of the phosphor bronze grips for the contacts which is extremely
paramount.
After very much evaluation we steered away from exotic platings for our plugs and connectors: Brass, Phosphor Bronze and Nickel as found on the
vast majority of plug pins and contact clips are all galvanically in a very similar voltage band whereas Gold, Silver, Platinum and Rhodium occupy a
band 0.35V away.
Mating galvanically dissimilar plug pins and contact clips is a recipe for degraded performance due to the introduction of galvanically induced
voltages (further exacerbated by vibration). As our mains plugs are almost invariably going to be introduced to wall sockets with phosphor bronze
contact grips and equipment inputs with nickel plated brass input receptacles, we utilise materials for our plugs and connectors to be galvanically
neutral in actual user situations. Our extensive listening tests proved this logic to be sonically correct.
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A self tapping screw was an easy solution for me on the one and only time it happened
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My NAP500 celebrates 25 years old this year. Wow, and it feels like new and plays wonderful. I wonder if Naim clean the banana connectors on the amps during service. Guess not given the answer from Neil earlier on.
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