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Mapleshade Silclear

Category: Accessories

I'm not a big proponent of the "WOW" factor, meaning very few tweaks have caused me to go "WOW". The wow ones include rebuilding my McCormack DNA .5 amp to near Rev A, changing the caps in my speakers from Axon's to Sonicaps, and few others. Now that doesn't mean I don't hear differences and improvements with other tweaks, it's just that I don't believe in overemphasizing these differences into religous revalations and such.

So, Silclear doesn't fall into the "WOW" category with me, but it did make an improvement in my rig. The simplest explanation of these changes I can make goes like this. Have you ever cleaned the contacts on your interconnects, speaker cables and power cords after a year or more of ignoring them? Did you hear the improvements in transparency and quieter backgrounds? Well I just cleaned everything over the New Year's holidays with cotton balls and alcohol with an application of SST (to signal wires) and Pro-Gold (to electrical connections) afterwards. Now, in February I applied Silclear to everything in my system that has a plug, jack or socket. This means interconnects, speaker cables, fuses, all electrical jacks inside my amp & CD player and DAC, electrical cords, tube pins, phono cartridge pins, etc. The difference was as if I left all these connections to tarnish for a year or more and then cleaned them all again.

Now, given that I just did the cleaning I can conclude that Silclear took this one step farther than alcohol and SST. Things were more transparent and noticeably punchier. The bass was louder (dammit - I had to turn down the sub's volume and rebalance the bottom end again). Soundstaging and imaging seemed to be a slight/tiny bit more forward than before, maybe because things seemed a bit louder at the same volume settings. Tonally everything was still balanced, just more there in terms of detail and nuance and definition. But I also found that there was a sense of more "realness" to instruments, especially cymbals (hearing more brass with the zing), and voice (more in the room presence), and piano (more body and weight). The system sounded quieter too - i.e. blacker backgrounds (but this can also vary by time of day as the power grid changes).

Is this a "wow" review in disguise? Perhaps for many it is, but I already have a whole lot of transparency and realness in my system (see "Isn't Anything Stock?" for my system details). I now have more of that than before.

I really can't report that there were any bad aftereffects of the Silclear either. There's no way to undo the application easily (it's a grease), so there's no A-B testing available. So many tweaks improve on thing at the expense of another - not here. It's a good thing (thank you Martha Stewart, now go directly to jail and don't pass "GO").

Enjoy,
Bob
ptmconsulting
perfectionist
197 posts
 
Boy, some interesting observations here. I just checked and I first introduced SilClear into my system 7/16/05, and I was so smitten with it that I listed it on my system page. I treated all ic's (xlr & se), pc's and the main fuses on my JC1 mono's. I did not do the main fuse on the Calypso preamp or the tube sockets on the preamp. I didn't do the tube sockets because if
I do ever want to remove the stuff, both for the reasons mentioned above and/or resale of the preamp, it would be very difficult to remove from the tube sockets, moreso I feel than other area's. But, after six month's, I hear no ill effects whatsoever. I'd say the bigest improvement I noticed using SilClear is just an overall smoothness to the music. It is somewhat of a commitment introducing it into one's system, I'll admit. As it is time consuming to put on, it is somewhat messy, and as all who use it know, fairly difficult to remove. And to take it one step further, if your turning a lot of gear, I wouldn't recommend it for the reasons listed. But I'm pretty well set with my gear, so decided to go for it and am very happy with the results.
Just hope it doesn't start to degrade sound as some have mentioned.
I'm dying to try it on the tubes in my pre, but I'm scared.
Someone talk me into it!!! :-)
sgr's avatar
sgr
689 posts
 
A friend and I tried using Sil Clear on our systems, mine is Levinson/Revel and his is Theta/Krell/Gryphon/Legacy. Both systems went over the top when we first introduced SilClear to our systems. Wow what a differnce. But 3 months latter we both noticed that our systems were lacking in resolution across the audio spectrum. We speculated on many why, and blamed the loss on sunspots, lasers, bad electricity, and humidty. But for some reason, we tried cleaning the connections with our favorite cleaners, the Caig products. There was an immediate improvement when the SilClear was removed (it was tough) and latter because I still thought I could do a better job in removing the stuff I cleaned mine again with even more improvement. Maybe the dedregation has something to do with the heat, or maybe the SilClear does not prevent oxidation of your contacts over time. At any rate, what was a positive, turned out to be a negative issue over time, and the stuff sure is a pain to remove, and yet . . . remembering the great improvement it made initially, I'm tempted to clean the system's contacts one more time, apply both the Caig cleaner and Gold, then put the SilClear on. Maybe this would stop the gradual degradation of my system's sound.
So if your sceptical, try removing the SilClear with the Caig cleaner and Gold treatment, then listening again. It would be interesting if you hear the same things.
By the way, the Caig cleaner, really does a fine job of removing the SilClear, which boosts my confidence in it's advertised claims.
Perfectionist, I would not try this treatment on your tube pins as tempting as it could be. I think you're asking for trouble eventually.
perfectionist
197 posts
 
SGR, your bummin' me out. I bought this stuff 'cause of your rantings (lol). Oh well, live and learn I guess. I have nothing better to do with my time than to spend hours cleaning grease from tiny connections, cracks and crevices. One of my audiophile buddie's told me not to do it, 'cause it's basically a grease and it's gonna be tough to remove. But I gotta say, after six month's, I detect no degradation in sound quality. Even the subtlest of nuances in movie soundtrack's are like right there, out in the open. But now I'll be paranoid everytime I sit down to listen.
Curse you SGR...(lol, again).
sgr's avatar
sgr
689 posts
 
So sorry for any conveniance. SilClear is an exciting product and I was certainly convinced of its importance. I never would have suspected the problem when I first used it. As I stated my audiophile friends and I were blown away for many months and treated our entire systems.
I'm hoping to experiment with it again, just on the power cord connections in my sytsem. I'm going to follow this protocol.
1. Carefully clean the contacts with Caig DeOxit and Gold.
2. Place the lightest, finest coating possible with Sil Clear.
3. Leave the cords plugged in for a month or two, then clean the pc connections and try listening again.
As I recall, I did not clean my connections orginally very carefully before applying SilClear and maybe this accounts for the problem.
4. I think I'll call Mapleshade and talk with Pierre.
Again sorry my rantings may have caused paranoia.
Sgr
gammajo's avatar
gammajo
846 posts
 
Well its good news and bad. I am very happy to hear that other careful listeners noticed so much improvement in thier systems also. Yet I now too await the degradation.Perhaps I will get lucky in that I did fairly carefully clean my connections before applying and used a thin coat.
The product recommends putting SilClear only on the male part of connections, so I can see how to clear that off. But of course once the connection is joined the Silclear is now on the female part as well. Do any of you with experience have suggestions on how to clean the now contaminated interior female parts? Sorry this post is so pornographic.
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