Mapleshade-Pierre Sprey

Sad to hear that he passed away. I had a few conversations with him and you could always tell that he was holding back his real thoughts so as to come off as reasonable. I had his ICs and speaker cables which saw me through the years but as always, I moved on. 

To know that he bucked Casper Weinberger and made him change his mind more than once still makes me smile.

All the best,
Nonoise

Wow, this is the first time I've heard of his passing. I met Pierre at the Hi-Fi 96 show in Manhattan in 1996. Very likeable guy. He was demoing mapleshade cds using some Stax headphones. Wow, what a sound. I bought several discs that day. Until recently I had a Samson audio rack, but sold it. He had some very eccentric ideas, but was very passionate about achieving good sound.

RIP

I didn't know Pierre passed on. I have his maple platforms under my speakers. They solved the booming bass problem - the result of a raised foundation.  RIP.

I was unaware of his passing and also his background in the defense industry. RIP Pierre.

pierre was a character, but a brilliant man, and really thought things through from first principles, rarely accepted conventional wisdom at face value

we had several conversations over the years, always engaging, funny, enlightening conversations (for me at least hehehe)... what i liked about him is that he was articulate, could properly explain the logic behind his beliefs, he was intellectually honest in thinking through counterarguments, thus could handle real debate

i am a fan of mapleshade’s solid core speaker cables still...

losing pierre is certainly a loss for the audiophile community for sure... rip

R.I.P. Pierre

I forgot to mention still  using a 10 year old Mapleshade modded Cambridge Audio CD  player.

Good unit as is(it's a $500 deck)better with the Mapleshade treatment, very good as a transport w/ DAC(Denafrips Ares). It came with that crazy power cord

Anyone  remember this?
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/05/57/95/05579551031b38bc6000f46245848ef2.jpg

@tablejockey I went on their website looking for that fire hazard err power cable, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw this news. Looks like wisely they stopped making them.

RIP Pierre.I have some Mapleshade CDs and a large stack of the catalogs.

" I went on their website looking for that fire hazard err power cable, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw this news"

jond-
I used it when I bought the CD player. Never any problems. I talked to one of the guys there about the candy wrapper becoming torn. He told to just scotch tape it and that Pierre used them WITHOUT the insulation because it improved SQ!

While the PC never did cause problems, I never read of any instances of disaster with it, I moved on. I always made sure I unplugged it whenever it wasn't being used. 

RIP
I called Mapleshade one Sat years ago and surprisingly Pierre answered. We talked for at least thirty minutes and I felt like kindred spirits.

A true genius in many aspects, and very nice guy, judging from my long over the years but brief email communication with him.

I just called Mapleshade to get info before placing an order and towards the end of the conversation I inquired as to why I hadn’t heard from Pierre lately. It was then I was informed that Pierre had passed away. I guess I’m kind of late to finding out, but do want to add that after several conversations with him, I was very impressed with his being so down to earth, concerned with improving my music and just an all around nice guy to chat with. RIP and thanks for making the hobby more enjoyable.

Pierre made one of the only HDMI cables that is noticeably better than stock. The Vivlink HDMI is now up to v3 and I highly recommend it to audio and videophiles.

But I have posted about that before, let me tell you my experience of the Mapleshade power cables. Yes they performed best without the plastic bag covers (they were just there for some kind of piece of mind liability protection, as Pierre admitted to me).

The Mapleshade was the best power cable I ever used and tested, against many others. It actually performed best with the wires criss crossing against each other, so there was no magentic coupling at all. This looping mess of wires would then be surrounded by 2 large external ground wires (different to the normal ground).

So imagine a gigantic birds nest of wire (5 solid core wires per power cable) behind a single component running to the power distributor, all raw wire and only laminated for protection. And I had 2 of them.

It was totally hair-shirt stuff, no consideration for practicality, and it looked utterly awful. But it killed the competition performance wise, at least in the $300-$800 price category I was comparing cables to.

But there came a time I had to look after my young niece and nephew a few times a week. So while I was willing to risk the danger of this setup for myself, and I went to great efforts to have all this wire off the ground, and minimize potential fire hazards, I was never willing to risk it with my family, so the 2 power cables have been wound up and put in a bag ever since.

I still have them and don't want to try them again, because I am sure they will be better than my current power cables, and I may be tempted to set these big birds nests up again.

 

RIP Pierre. 
 

Is Mapleshade still in business?  The website remains but No one answers the phone. 

Late to this very sad news. RIP Pierre. Met him several times and had a few conversations with him ( all about music ).1st time I met Pierre, I was the " demo guy " for the Jadis brand at the ’96 Stereophile show at the NY Waldorf. My buddy and a partner of his were the importers at the time. It was Friday early in the afternoon, and he approached me through the crowd, handing me 2 of his cds, asking me to play these during the 3 days. He was obviously selling his cd label, and they were, and are, excellent. ( A side note ). One of my demo tracks throughout the weekend ( cd only ) was track 5 of " The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking ", by Roger Waters. The Eurythmie designer ( Jacque something I think ), almost got us kicked out of the show. He tried to take over my job by wanting me to play this one track, over and over, and at ridiculously loud levels ( for a show ), that corresponding exhibitors were complaining to the hotel, and we were warned many times of being shut down. Anyway, Pierre was a very passionate and friendly guy. A good salesman as well. Again, RIP, and my condolences to his family.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/pierre-sprey-dead/2021/08/20/fe995430-ff6e-11eb-ba7e-2cf966e88e93_story.html

wonderful read...

Somehow I have missed this thread. Have many Mapleshade CDs and their USB/SPDIF converter. 

@jjss49 Thanks for the read.

Great read jjss49-thanks!