cryogenics and speaker cable

These cryo treatments you mention are to change the mechanical properties of the material to an advantage.
Cryo on conductors don't have any significant electrical effect until you get to the superconductin temperatures (if the conductor will even superconduct).
If you took NACA5 and dunked it in liquid N2, it would be stiffer than it is now! Ha!
Seriously, it would change the properties of the dielectric more than the copper and maybe not for the better.
Anybody have experience with this?
David

if you subject NACA5 to liquid nitrogen, surely you will destroy the black insulator shielding. At that temperature, plastic/ rubber will not survive (become brittle and crack).

years ago, when I studied quantum physics, one of the areas of study was super cooling of metals.
Copper was one of the examples used. When cooled to minus whatever, the crystaline structure of the metal actually becomes more orderly, and hence, a more effective conductor.
It takes a really LONG time in submersion for that effect. It reverts when heated or a current is passed through the wire, although that too takes times. So the benefit is only temporary.
Cryo has other, interesting effects on metals too. And then there's Ted Williams' head ----

I'm not sure you're right about that. Isolda is indeed frozen in order to form an ordered crystal structure. Warming it up slowly, in controlled conditions will then anneal the copper to best advantage and maintain a regular electron flow when used. Only if you bend solid core or ribbon copper will it work harden and lose some of these properties.

Anyway, I didn't buy Isolda because of what's been done to it but because of how it sounds. It is significantly better than any cable I've heard up to 5 times its price.

Alex

BTW Alan, Isolda is perfectly safe for use with Naim amps should you wish.

Alex - quantum physics is certainly not my field, I am merely putting out what I was exposed to.
By slowing the motion of electrons, as the theory was taught, materials become more orderly in structure. Once returned to a normal temperature environment, the electrons increase in motion and the effect diminishes.

One demonstration that really stuck in my mind was taking a super cooled fluid (which was contained w/in a magnetic field) and seeing it poured into a glass beaker. The fluid virtually slipped between the molecules of the glass as if it weren't there, passing through it!

Another demonstration used a container of sand, which when cooled, the sand arranged itself into seperate sections according to the density of the crystals.

Granted, this was a long time ago. Still, the mechanics of accomplishing all this was huge and expensive. The closer to absolute zero one goes, the more exponetial the use of energy to achieve the cooling. (Kinda like hi fi, more money for smaller and smaller improvements.)

I do not know if commericaly available cryo techniques approach the temperatures in a research lab, and again, these results were achieved after extremely long times in submersion.

I am not saying cryo doesn't work, nor am I commenting on it's effectiveness for treating speaker cables, or anything else.

I am saying that it isn't permenant, unless the laws of physics have changed.

Also - isn't it curious that wire may sound better when cooled, but we're always waiting for our electronics to warm up?