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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
640 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.
ckorody
640 posts
 
I am not a qualified tech - but it seems unlikely that Silclear would cause something so specific. Especially if when you swap tubes the voltage drop didn't follow.

If the problem remains constant and in place, then it is stationary. To me this would suggest a potential problem in the tube socket and/or the soldering to it... or a problem with the XLR job and/or the soldering to it. Or it could be the wire itself.
robertsong
53 posts
 
Anybody still recommend silclear? I'm curious about how it is applied. It is it easy to get a very thing coat on rca connectors? What's the best way to clear off any excess amount?
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
Since Silclear and similar products like Xtreme AV Quicksilver Gold and Walker Vivid are conductive, care must be taken applying the paste/fluid *anywhere* - especially on connections like tube pins, when excess paste/fluid can be squeezed out when the tubes are reinserted in the sockets. One (almost) foolproof method of treating tube pins is to apply product half way up the pin only to minimize chance that the paste/fluid migrates up the pin to the base of the tube when the tube is reinserted into the socket.
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