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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
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,623 posts
 
Gammajo:

I've heard that kerosine or gasoline is the way to go if it is applied thickly.
White gas would be best but its hard to find nowadays. I initially put Silclear on very sparingly so I just used Caig Pro Gold G5 and sprayed it directly onto the male contacts and into the female contacts and wiped if off with a clean cloth and used cotton swabs where I could. Nothing too intricate and time consuming and all came out just fine.
I thought I had detail and info aplenty but now its a different story. As for the migration of Silclear, there's nothing really to worry about as long as it wasn't liberally applied. If there were to be a short, it would have happened already.
By the way, I'm going to repeat the whole process in a month or two just to make sure I get any residual effects. The best thing is not to panic and just go about cleaning the contacts as you would normally and all will be okay.
Good luck.
gammajo's avatar
gammajo
844 posts
 
NoNoise
Thanks. Not panicking but wanting everything right for my new speakers. K1 Kerosin does work well to remove.
"I thought I had detail and info aplenty but now its a different story." Not sure if you mean it was better with the Silclear or after it was removed.
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,623 posts
 
I meant to say that I can hear more detail now that the Silclear is gone. Its funny that it took over a year for the cloudiness to appear. On first application, it was quite nice-no cloudiness at all and all of a sudden, dark skies.
gammajo's avatar
gammajo
844 posts
 
I had the same experience except over a a period of about two months. Was wondering if my ears were tricking me, so thank you for sharing your experience. My guess is that I applied it more thickly or my SS amp generated more heat.
mitch2
3,736 posts
 
Instead of kerosine, you might try using a citrus based degreaser product like for cleaning bike chains, etc. TSP is also good for cutting grease (its the active ingredient in Dawn dish soap).

I came across this thread when researching contact enhancers for my bare copper speaker cable spades. Sure seems like a lot of problems with this particular product, and makes me question using similar products. I am still interested in the Quicksilver silver or gold, which have been highly recommended without the reported side effects, and possibly the Furutech Nano Liquid. The cost is not a big issue, as long as the product is beneficial. However, considering all the problems, maybe I should simply continue to clean my connectors using the Caig products (deoxit and pro gold) a couple of times a year. Any further thoughts?
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