Cryo-treatment and the test of time

When I read this thread's title, I thought they had revived Walt Disney.

prog rocksicle

They were great until they reached room temperature.

You are a little suggestive by writing 'cryo' instead of 'cyro'.

I use a number of AV Options products that have been deep cryod, including the snaics, speaker cables and power strips.  They sound fantastic.  Very smooth, tons of prat, great bass extension, etc.  The music sounds so good.  

To answer your questions more directly:  yes, I felt it was money well spent and high value for money.  Looking beyond my present system, I am replacing the Mojo in my office with a Qutest and got a Chord Shawline with the deep cryo treatment for it.  I will eventually have the hicap on my Headline rebuilt by AVO and when I do I will likely have the transformer deep cryod, just like I did on the hicap that powers my 72.

Cryo treatment remains an interesting prospect to me. By and large most with cryo'd components are very satisfied with the results. Still in most cases, the user is unable to do direct A/B comparisons; they buy a new cryo'd component, install it, and espouse the results.

I've contemplated having my current cables cryo'd by an independent service. They charge by the pound (US weight) in ten-pound increments. So for 20-pounds of weight, I could have my speaker cables ¹ , mains cables, interconnects, and power strip cryo'd as a bunch. Doing all-at-once would be the most cost-effective means.

That would still leave me in a indirect A/B comparison mode. There would be a few weeks lag time with no listening to my system. Would the results be that obvious, or would I put myself in a position where I'm simply enjoying my system's sound after a hiatus and left "rationalizing" the effort and money spent?

¹ my NACA5 runs are 27-feet long

Does the outer plastic cable insulation not suffer in cryo treatment?

I would have thought it may permanently damage it long term...

And doesn’t the crystal structure revert to normal over time, so making any benefit temporary?

Different of course if you could keep the cables cryogenically cooled, allowing superconductivity - maybe the ultimate cable? (At a cost exceeding the sum of the rest of your system, including people with Statement amps...)

Isn't there also some story that CDs also sound better after they have been in the freezer for some time?

I could be onto something here !!

Freeze your CDs just before ripping them ! Then you get any benefit permanently in the rip file

I MUST try this ...

Japtimscarlet posted:

Isn't there also some story that CDs also sound better after they have been in the freezer for some time?

I could be onto something here !!

Freeze your CDs just before ripping them ! Then you get any benefit permanently in the rip file

I MUST try this ...

You’d better completely dehumidify the room first, to avoid condensation on the disk. Alternatively Get a CD reader rated for arctic use and put it in the freezer as well...

It's the actual freezing of the disk that is supposed to improve it ...not putting it in the cd or ripper WHILE still frozen!!!

Idiotic unhelpful comments seem to appear much more frequently these days than they did back in the late 90s/early 2000s.  These are just the latest examples.  

I've not tried this 

You most obviously have as you have given judgement?

Some years back (an intel 486 was the current PC chip) I used to look after a differential scanning calorimeter though we didn’t do much with industrial polymers being more interested in proteins and fats. Our instrument had an intercooler fitted and was meant to go down to -70 but I never saw more than -45 on it. During the training course for it we ran a few polymer samples and found they were often below their glass transition temperature but supercooled, no transition would show up if you just heated them directly but if you took them down to -40 and waited a bit before heating you’d get a crystalisation trace as they cooled or while they waited at -40, heating the sample from there gave you a glass transition step  where there was none showing on the directly heated sample. Does the insulation around a wire being in a crysaline form rather than amorphous give better sound? F***ed if I know but Naim claim the directionality of A5 comes when the insulation is applied. At cryo temperatures the conductor is likely to change crystal form too and might not return to where it started when back up to ambient given its likely thermal history before treatment, so several possible effects and absolutely  nothing to say any of them affect the sound, or not.

Japtimscarlet posted:

It's the actual freezing of the disk that is supposed to improve it ...not putting it in the cd or ripper WHILE still frozen!!!

Sorry, I actually thought you were joking, hence my response!,

As the CD is just a carrier of the encoded file, I can’t see how changing the crystalline structure of  the disk could improve it, though I can see how microscopic changes in the recorded pits or reflective sipurface thereof could cause misreading and so deterioration.

Innocent Bystander posted:

And doesn’t the crystal structure revert to normal over time, so making any benefit temporary?

This aspect was inherent in my topic title that included the phrase "and the test of time". Problem here is that if there is a slow degradation back to normal, how might the listener discern it? Like system re-caps, do cryo'd components need a re-cryo?

Japtimscarlet posted:

Isn't there also some story that CDs also sound better

Indeed, the cryoing service I looked at claims CDs will benefit. Should I choose to do the treatment, I would throw in a few familiar CDs as they'd add little weight. I have a few duplicates so I could actually do a direct A/B comparison. My gut tells me that with my mid-level gear there might be little to discern. Maybe cryo money is best spent on upper-level gear?

joerand posted:

Japtimscarlet posted:

Isn't there also some story that CDs also sound better

Indeed, the cryoing service I looked at claims CDs will benefit. Should I choose to do the treatment, I would throw in a few familiar CDs as they'd add little weight. I have a few duplicates so I could actually do a direct A/B comparison. My gut tells me that with my mid-level gear there might be little to discern. Maybe cryo money is best spent on upper-level gear?

Surely if they rip and match accurate rip database already, freezing them is a pile of crap.

Feezing has been theorised to contract any occlusions in the transparent layer causing less laser defraction. This is more empiracly suggested. Data discs that develop unreadable blocks can be frozen and the next day you 'might' get a clean read off the disc before it warms up again if played in a low humidity environment. Of course back when that was a common practice, optical drives were more flakey than they are today. But even back then, sticking discs in the freezer was a desperation measure. The good results after this are as likely to be caused by the thorough cleaning of the disc that went along with it.

I think a larger issue with cryo treatment of components and cables is:

1. Invalidates warranty

2. In a highly matched system like those pushed by Naim and Linn, it changes a parameter that the system wasn't designed with. Maybe that is better, only you can decide. But a cryo treated HiLine is no longer a HiLine.

yeti42 posted:

Does the insulation around a wire being in a crysaline form rather than amorphous give better sound? F***ed if I know but Naim claim the directionality of A5 comes when the insulation is applied.

Not disputing anything you've said, but I'd relish a citation on Naim's directionality with insulation claim. Anything I've read says a wire's directionality comes from when it is drawn through the die. On the other hand, when you consider the process of cable rolling onto a reel, the application of insulation from the reverse direction makes sense. Then again, it's just a matter of which direction you apply the labelling on the cable insulation.

Off the subject ... again...

There is also a very expensive "cd lathe" sold that basically just trims the edge off a cd ( at a precise scientific angle ...of course)

That is supposed to stop / lessen light scattering from the Lazer

Now I DID try this ...and thought I might have detected a slight improvement ..but my mate who was the "blind" part of the test said ..no difference..so probably just placebo ...(great band by the way)

Japtimscarlet posted:

Off the subject ... again...

There is also a very expensive "cd lathe" sold that basically just trims the edge off a cd ( at a precise scientific angle ...of course)

That is supposed to stop / lessen light scattering from the Lazer

Now I DID try this ...and thought I might have detected a slight improvement ..but my mate who was the "blind" part of the test said ..no difference..so probably just placebo ...(great band by the way)

 

The lathe may improve the ability of a CD to be read but it should not change the SQ because the CD still contains the same data. I remember a few decades ago there was a green marker pen that could be applied to the edge of a disk. Apparently it was supposed to improve the SQ... 

Yes tried the marker pen trick too... though I remember it as black

All that did was left marks on my hands..

ngarritson posted:

Idiotic unhelpful comments seem to appear much more frequently these days than they did back in the late 90s/early 2000s.  These are just the latest examples.  

Idiotic sounding to you, perhaps, but mine at least were genuine responses to the questions, albeit that in one case I thought the question was a joke.

joerand posted:

yeti42 posted:

Does the insulation around a wire being in a crysaline form rather than amorphous give better sound? F***ed if I know but Naim claim the directionality of A5 comes when the insulation is applied.

Not disputing anything you've said, but I'd relish a citation on Naim's directionality with insulation claim. Anything I've read says a wire's directionality comes from when it is drawn through the die. On the other hand, when you consider the process of cable rolling onto a reel, the application of insulation from the reverse direction makes sense. Then again, it's just a matter of which direction you apply the labelling on the cable insulation.

Only an indirect one I'm afraid but from this very forum.

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...194#1566878607773194