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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
ckorody
643 posts
 
hey the good news is there is proof positive right here that you can remove it LOL

just use half as much as you imagine being the bare minimum and all will be fine - how big can those microflaws be???
perfectionist
197 posts
 
I had forgot about this thread, and feel I should update my thoughts on Silclear. Going by memory; I would say that after about a year with this product in my system, I felt things were sounding a bit dull and lifeless. So, I decided to remove it from all connections with the exception of pc's. What a frigging chore to remove, not fun. After removing with harsher chemicals, I then cleaned with Deoxit, and then treated with Pro Gold (I had always used deoxit and pro gold in the past). The sound came back to life after removing silclear. Having said that, I was initially impressed with silclear. But there is not a chance in hell I'm going to remove, clean, and re-apply even once per year. Also, I just don't like the idea of a grease on audio connections, it just doesn't make sense to me. I've never had any issues using pro gold. I have a full jar of silclear and will never use it again.
cdface
12 posts
 
Reviving an old thread here, but I need some advice that I think someone here can provide. I recently bought a preamp which had its tubes (just 2 12AU7s) treated at least once with Silclear. I was advised that if one of the channels got hissy, I should put more Silclear on each pin. Besides the hissiness, which really hasn't been much of an issue, I immediately found that the XLR output from one channel was significantly weaker than the other channel and a bit crackly to boot, even though the RCA outputs are fine. Can't fault the previous owner since he didn't have need for the XLRs. Anyway, I had the problem narrowed down to a bad socket, a bad component between the socket and the XLR (if there is anything), or bad soldering. Then I came across this thread. I really have no idea how the preamp works, but if the XLRs use one or more additional pins that the RCAs don't, then it seems like Silclear could be the culprit. What say ye? Thanks for the help!

Chris
ckorody
643 posts
 
Sorry but I am missing the logic here - Silclear on the tube pins either creates/adds noise or it does not.

Assuming the tubes are for the left and right channel you can test that by swapping the tubes and seeing if the "weakness" is now on the other channel.

If the "weakness" follows then you the tube is the probably culprit and most likely needs replacing. You can do the same with the source input cables and the XLR output cables.

The prevailing wisdom I have lived by for 35 years is when in doubt, suspect the cables first.

Finally if you have taken the time to read the whole thread you will know that putting Silclear on anything - especially tube pins is a bad idea.

It becomes sticky and gummy, loses conductivity and is a PITA to remove. More specifically there have been some reports of Silclear on the tube pins shorting out the tube socket.
cdface
12 posts
 
Apologies if I didn't make myself clear enough. Let's try again. Cables and tubes and sources have been swapped every which way to ensure that it is the right channel of the preamp itself that is the issue. After reading most of this thread, I also came to the conclusion that Silclear on tube pins is bad, and I had no intention of putting more on the pins - I mentioned the seller's advice merely for the potential irony of it. I guess what I'm asking is this: first, besides adding noise, can Silclear reduce the conductivity between the pin and its socket to the point where signal voltage is noticeably reduced down the circuit, and second, could that one pin being bad cause the sort of symptom I'm seeing, which more specifically looks like one leg/pin of the right XLR output is low while the unbalanced output checks out fine. I realize now the second question may not be particularly appropriate for this thread, and I will ask it elsewhere if I get no response. Thanks.
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