Cryogenic revisited

It would be a free upgrade for us here: just leaving the cable outside for a few days in february. Or does it works in the freezer.

Emmanuel

All opinions are my own, and reflect those of the organisation i work for, even if not stipulated.

Go to this website

Empirical Audio

Click on the "Technical Papers" button.

Choose "Direct-Imersion LNO2 Study" and have a good read.

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Originally posted by undertone:
Go to this website

http://www.empiricalaudio.com

Click on the "Technical Papers" button.

Choose "Direct-Imersion LNO2 Study" and have a good read.

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Interesting. Their assessment of the sound of a treated wire would probably agree with what I heard when I fist plugged everything back together (I was not overly happy at that point as you might imagine), however it certainly would not describe things after a few days, or even a few hours. If I were to simply describe the ultimate effect of the cryogenic treatment I would say it made the sound seem pure and effortless.

I have heard/read these ‘don’t do it’ opinions before and I have also read articles more or less completely the opposite to this. This lack of a definitive answer is one of the reasons why I decided to see (or should I say hear) for myself.

I had been pondering doing it when I heard the experimentally treated version of my Slinkylinks interconnects. Being made of .25mm silver wire (4 wires per cable) the untreated ones had the silver characteristic of improvement in high-end detail and clarity and the tightened but reduced bottom end. The treated versions did not lose any high-end quality but did add noticeably more weight lower down without any loss of control. The words that came to me at the time were “more powerful”.

The demo was actually conduced by the cable manufacturer using treated cables he had removed from his own system, so they were well run in. While trying to convince him to sell them we came to a compromise where I could tag my cables (all my cables) on the back of their next experimental batch. In the event, an opportunity came earlier and I took it. The treatment process takes 4 days (not including shipping) and is apparently done in a computer-controlled environment, which gives a very slow temperature descent and a similarly slow rise.

So, on the basis of personal experience, i.e. from actually having had my own cables professionally treated, I would say that the effect was well worth while and I would not hesitate to do it again. As a final note, with NACA5 being so cheap, as some have noted, it would be a relatively inexpensive recovery should an experiment along these lines prove a failure.


Regards
Steve

It's interesting that although Townshend reckons his cables don't need running in, he does reckon that they need a significant settling time of about a week. Perhaps this is due to the cryogenic treatment, which would account for your similar settling in period. This could mean your dealer would have to leave the cables undisturbed for a few days to get the benefit.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

I tried a cryogenically treated interconnect cable with my system quite recently. Some interesting results.

For the last six months I've been using a custom made cable built for me by a friend for all of £15. It completely walked all over my old Cobra 2.
So when another chap I knew offered to let me try out a cryogenically treated custom built cable (using bullets and probably some rather tasty wire), I jumped a the chance.

Like the initial poster, I found the treated stuff, more accurate, more natural, cleaner and having better frequency extremes.
The only downside I found was that it lost it's edge on musical notes, so losing some of the vitality, snap and excitement that exists in my system.
I guess it really comes down to personal preference. For me, I wanted the drive and excitement. If however, you're more inclined to maybe classical pieces and a more sedate/natural pace, the cryo method seemed very worthwhile.

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Originally posted by Mr_Sukebe:
I guess it really comes down to personal preference. For me, I wanted the drive and excitement. If however, you're more inclined to maybe classical pieces and a more sedate/natural pace, the cryo method seemed very worthwhile.

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Very much so. But in my case the music seems far more alive now than it ever has.

I have gone from a Cobra (don't know which one - about 1994 vintage) to a silver interconnect to having all the cables between my CDP and speakers cryogenically treated, all in the space of 3 months. At the same time I have introduced a number of vibration control/isolation modifications for my front end and equipment and acquired some concrete paving slabs for my speakers. I have certainly not noticed any drop in musicality but perhaps the improvements from all the other changes have buried any such effect.

Steve

Steve it also works on CDs, store them in a freezer prior to playing, just make sure there is no condensation on them

It actually works on every part of the system, from the CD to the speakers. For this reason I have had my music room converted into a giant lock-up commercial freezer. You have to dress up like a Sherpa before each session (careful with the face and feet - I lost the tip of my nose and three toes to frostbite in the early days) but the results are well worth the trouble. I have my CD collection hanging from a replica killing chain on wee meat hooks.

Minky,

This echos my experience completely. The only thing I can add is a cautionary note- after a heavy session of salsa music, I found that it tooks weeks for the system to adequately cool down again to the point of maximizing the cryogenic effect.

BEC

Hey, there ain't nuthin' colder than a BEC - "a new form of matter at the coldest temperatures in the universe".

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne (at) Dial.Pipex.com. Put "Naim" in the title.

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Originally posted by Minky:
It actually works on every part of the system, from the CD to the speakers. For this reason I have had my music room converted into a giant lock-up commercial freezer. You have to dress up like a Sherpa before each session (careful with the face and feet - I lost the tip of my nose and three toes to frostbite in the early days) but the results are well worth the trouble. I have my CD collection hanging from a replica killing chain on wee meat hooks.

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And your new nick-naim among the girls down at the pub is "ski-doo dick".

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Originally posted by Martin Payne:
Hey, there ain't nuthin' colder than a http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/ - "a new form of matter at the coldest temperatures in the universe".

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne (at) Dial.Pipex.com. Put "Naim" in the title.

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Bose-Einstein, were they a team? Now that would explain why Bose speakers sound so good.