Stager Silver Solids reworked

A place for DIY project discussions.
User avatar
TheMadMick
Posts: 437
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2017 9:50 am
Location: SOUTHPORT, UK
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 141 times
ST_PATRICK'S_SALTIRE

Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by TheMadMick »

I found these (http://stagersound.com/silver/intro.htm) on t'internet and ordered a 1m pair. The reviews, personal and professional were excellent. I didn't realise quite how flexible they were and they flopped all over the back of my set up. Basically, 28 gauge (0.5mm) silver wire in PTFE (Teflon) insulation with Canare F-10 RCA's. They sounded really good. If you like DNM these are like supercharged DNM and image like anything. However, I wasn't so pleased with the length as it not only looked awful (but who sees down the back of you set up?) and seemed to get entangled with the power cables (not good) One reviewer said something like "you could make it yourself but why bother as it costs about the same to let Marc Stager do it". So I looked it up, found he was wrong and decided to make a pair with a few changes:

a) DNM is spaced and the Stagers are twisted. I had a good experience replacing the supplied twisted cables on my super tweeters with spaced DNM and thought "why not?" and it makes it easier to not screw things up by twisting the wires.

b) I had good experience with Eichmann bullets on DNM and decided to use them instead of the substantial Canare's.

All the stuff is available on e bay at very reasonable prices. I spent about £75.00. A couple of BEWARES. 0.5mm wire will not fit down a 0.5mm bore PTFE tube. I used 1mm bore. The wire kinks like anything and comes in quite a tight coil. It pays to take care unwinding it. I didn't and paid the price.

The soldering is a bit fiddly and I used high silver content stuff and cleaned to wires and phono contacts with DeOxit gold. I couldn't figure out how to space the signal and ground leads so I left them to find their own place. It looks better than the sagging 1m length even though they are not evenly spaced.

Installed them and they are noticeably similar to the Stager's and now fit better. But the interesting thing is, after a few hours I stopped listening to the wonderful sound and started to engage with the music on a more emotional level. The individual instruments and singers are better defined and the bass, in particular, is really tuneful, realistic and deep.

Having paid about £165.00 for the Stagers and £75.00 for the DIY - I'd be onto a winner if they were the same. To my ears, these sound better and I trust they will continue to improve with time.

One word more. Cables can be very system specific. These are in a Musical Fidelity system upgraded by JS Audio. If yours is the same or similar and you have decent speaker cables (LS6 is my current favourite) then give it a go. £75.00 is not a fortune in this game.

Enjoy.
Blusound Vault 2, P50SA, A80's, BMU, TIS, LS7, MA PL200, Meridian 506 (18 bit).

antonio66
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by antonio66 »

I like silver interconnects, using Artisan coax between cdt and dac, and also between phonostage and pre. I have purchased SSP from Kazam and will be trying that as a replacement, I really don't like those WBT screw phonos that the Artisan use.

User avatar
TheMadMick
Posts: 437
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2017 9:50 am
Location: SOUTHPORT, UK
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 141 times
ST_PATRICK'S_SALTIRE

Re: Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by TheMadMick »

Thought so much of the original rework, I tried the same philosophy on the leads to my supertweeters both to see the effect and tidy up the DNM which was to long and I didn't want to cut. I won't say it's night and day but I turned down the attenuation (turned up the volume) on the supertweeters and it still sounds sweet. For the cost of 2m of 22 gauge silver wire and using up the rest of the PTFE tubing, it was a reasonable outcome but wouldn't recommend it for anyone without decent speaker cables.

Next experiment please.

Anyone want to buy a 1m pair of Stager silver solids? :think:
Blusound Vault 2, P50SA, A80's, BMU, TIS, LS7, MA PL200, Meridian 506 (18 bit).

User avatar
TheMadMick
Posts: 437
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2017 9:50 am
Location: SOUTHPORT, UK
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 141 times
ST_PATRICK'S_SALTIRE

Re: Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by TheMadMick »

I've had the interconnects running for a couple of weeks now and, a little to my surprise, they have improved quite a bit. The imaging is superb on the right material and the tonal balance is superb but most of all, they seem to let the music flow. I always enjoyed my system but now I enjoy it even more. The down side is that poor recordings are so much more obvious and I don't choose my music by recording quality - well not much!!!

Next, TIS. If they beat this, it will be bleeding amazing - I'm prepared to be amazed :!:
Blusound Vault 2, P50SA, A80's, BMU, TIS, LS7, MA PL200, Meridian 506 (18 bit).

User avatar
TheMadMick
Posts: 437
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2017 9:50 am
Location: SOUTHPORT, UK
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 141 times
ST_PATRICK'S_SALTIRE

Re: Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by TheMadMick »

This is an interim review of TIS (Mk1) and is here because I want to refer to the Silver Solids (above). How much use it will be I don't know for a cable that is obselescent but here goes.

I judge cables on 2 main criteria:

a) tonal balance. The strays over into musicality. How good does the music sound to me.
b) detail retrieval - probably better thought of as transparency

The silver solids I made had a certain "brilliance" in the treble and a very deep bass although it could be rather dry depending on the material.

I ran the TIS for 2 days solid on my tuner and have put about another 10 - 20 hours on my CD player. Given my experience of LS6 which took over 5 weeks to come on song, I suspect this cable is not fully run in. But here goes:

Like so many cables it started with a hard upper treble (female voice sounds strident) and a bass which has so far developed a "plummy" sound. I suspect both of these will improve with time.

Where this cable scores over anything else I have cast my ear to is detail retrieval. I'm sure you know the feeling "I don't remember hearing that before"? I've had lots of moments like this and the result is a stereo image you can almost walk around. It shows up clearly differences between recordings and tracks. In this respect it has no equal in my experience (and I've had some pretty expensive wires).

Is it worth the money? Well it depends on what is important to you. It is getting close to letting the emotion of the music come through unhindered - that is really difficult to define and I hope progress continues. If I hadn't the money to spend on TIS I'd still be happy with the silver solids and might have invested in making another set with the solid silver Eichmann bullets.

Watch this space.
Blusound Vault 2, P50SA, A80's, BMU, TIS, LS7, MA PL200, Meridian 506 (18 bit).

User avatar
TheMadMick
Posts: 437
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2017 9:50 am
Location: SOUTHPORT, UK
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 141 times
ST_PATRICK'S_SALTIRE

Re: Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by TheMadMick »

Had another bad mains afternoon. When the volume was high enough to spread the stereo image reasonably, :( the upper mid range was excruciating - not quite deafening but almost painful. That BMU can't come soon enough. :(
Blusound Vault 2, P50SA, A80's, BMU, TIS, LS7, MA PL200, Meridian 506 (18 bit).

User avatar
jayman67
Posts: 553
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2016 6:28 pm
Location: brighton uk
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by jayman67 »

for the novice how about some ebay links please?
Yamaha NS1000M speakers,Pioneer PLC-590 turntable,,Alphason HR-100S-MCS/Zeta tonearms,Denon 103sa cartridge ,Sony 700ES Amp,Sony X555ES CD Player, Nakamichi ca5 pre amp.

User avatar
TheMadMick
Posts: 437
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2017 9:50 am
Location: SOUTHPORT, UK
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 141 times
ST_PATRICK'S_SALTIRE

Re: Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by TheMadMick »

Happy to oblige. TIS is offered by Doc at a discount elsewhere on this site under NVA and subject TIS Mk2.

Silver wire: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fine-Silver-9 ... iS6bf-RpUQ
Eichmann bullets (Copper harmony): http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KLE-COPPER-HA ... SwGvhUEx33
Silver harmony: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KLE-Innovatio ... Sw241YYBCC

I already had the solder and the deoxit but they are available on Amazon at as good a price as any. If you don't like Amazon then Google it.

Hope that helps? :P
Blusound Vault 2, P50SA, A80's, BMU, TIS, LS7, MA PL200, Meridian 506 (18 bit).

User avatar
jayman67
Posts: 553
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2016 6:28 pm
Location: brighton uk
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by jayman67 »

brilliant cheers matey !
Yamaha NS1000M speakers,Pioneer PLC-590 turntable,,Alphason HR-100S-MCS/Zeta tonearms,Denon 103sa cartridge ,Sony 700ES Amp,Sony X555ES CD Player, Nakamichi ca5 pre amp.

_D_S_J_R_
Posts: 4185
Joined: Mon Feb 03, 2014 9:53 am
Location: The end of the road in Suffolk Coastal.
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 6 times
Wales

Re: Stager Silver Solids reworked

Unread post by _D_S_J_R_ »

I really must be going deaf here but here's my own take on any sonic changes over the first few hours. My TIS didn't have a 'sound' at all when I got it fresh from the Doc's soldering iron (I watched it cut from the drum, stripped and constructed...). The cheaper SSP2 offers the 'precision' and a slightly 'bigger' sound over the SSC, which itself fleshes things more than the basic SC does and I think the SSP2 remains a fantastic 'value' interconnect if a £200 collection of wires can be classes that way, but the TIS just seems to pull it all together better, and nothing in my stereos could be said to be 'front rank.' I honestly can't say it 'runs in' at all, but I'll tell you one thing - once used for a week or so, it's very difficult to live without once it's taken from the system and it's helped to 'save' the digital side of my workroom stereo ;)
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way...The time has gone, The song is over, Thought I'd something more to say...

Post Reply