Interview with Marc Stager, of Stager Sound:

Avrev.com: Can you tell us a bit about your background and what led you to get into the audio cable business?

Marc Stager: I inherited my love of music from two talented and music loving parents. My mom was a fine concert pianist and dad was an excellent amateur violinist and we would go to hear classical music in places like Carnegie Hall and the Met in NYC.

I caught the high-end bug at a hi-fi show in when I was still a kid. Then I built and modded Dyna, and later, Hafler kits. I helped my dad put together a fine Fisher based component system. I remember the AR turntable had a permanent pole motor, which could play with perfect accuracy in either direction. It had a small secondary motor on a short belt to start it turning clockwise. I used to remove that belt and look for secret codes recorded backwards on Beatles records. Drove the old man nuts! (Don't ask about the time I lost the belt.)

I provided live concert systems for outdoor classical concerts in Central Park and outdoors at Lincoln Center for thirteen years and designed and built a wide dispersion, very accurate sounding tri-amped speaker system for those concerts. They still are in active use for special events and shows in and around NYC and currently reside at the acoustically superb Park West Presbyterian church in Manhattan where they are used for concert amplification.

The cable business started when I was trying some ideas for the most transparent, most musically accurate interconnect that could be made. I remember reading a formula for silver cabling by Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg. I made a pair of interconnects based on that formula and they turned out to be superior to any other cable I had ever used - including pricey Kimber and Monster cables. Some friends came by to listen and asked me to make them some, then suggested I could make them and sell them on the Internet. This was back in 1995 and I have been doing that since, The design is still fundamentally the same. Also, I haven't found any connector to improve on the fit and finish - or the sound (or lack thereof), of Canare F-10 RCA's.

Avrev.com: Can you tell us about about the differences between copper and silver as conductors as well as the differences between solid core and stranded wire?

Marc Stager: I can only tell you from experimenting and listening that a pair of single, thin silver (best conductor available) wires inside Teflon (the best dielectric available), tubes without shielding to keep capacitance at a minimum, have proven to be an unbeatable combination to deliver the electrons from one component to the next with an absolute minimum of coloration and distortion - At ANY price. And the best part is they don't need to be ridiculously expensive.

Avrev.com: Your cables are affordable for all audiophiles. Is there anyway to justify interconnects costing twenty costing 40 or 50 times what yours do from other companies?

Marc Stager: Absolutely. If you are in that exalted "1%" with money to burn, and you would like to put them in a display case and show them off as visual art, my cables would not be your first choice. But if you're in the other 99% like myself, and uncompromising audio performance is your primary objective, Stager Silver Solids would be an excellent choice.

Thanks and best regards,
Marc Stager
Stager Silver Solids,
New York City
silversolids.com
tel:  212-595-4065
cel: 212-675-6000

Specifications

Design: Unshielded symmetrical pair - Ultra low 11 pF/ft. capacitance. Outstanding performance as an analog or digital link.
Wire:  .999 pure fine silver solid core wire  24 ga. (.020" diameter) .      
Insulator:  Translucent Teflon. Teflon is the very best insulator available at any price.        
Connectors:   Canare F-10 RCA connectors. Machined solid brass center, Teflon insulator, 24K gold plated contacts, spring strain relief. Beautiful fit and finish. Stager Silver Solids are also available in a three wire balanced configuration with gold tipped Neutrik XLR connectors.        
Construction: Lead free silver solder at all contacts. Color coded Polyolefin heat shrink at ends.  Caig DeOxit Gold coating applied to silver for lasting anti-tarnish protection, and to connectors for perfect electrical contact.        

Review System 1