[jcrane]

Hey guys hoping you can give me your insight and thoughts on a few things involving Cryogenic Treatment of audio gear.
1. Does anyone in the STL area provide this service?
2. Has anyone had gear treated (by anyone) or bought treated gear?
3. What does treatment add in your opinion and is it worth it?
4. What kind of money are we talking about to get something treated either locally or via mail order.
5. Any other thoughts on treatment?

I am just thinking out loud right now and need some opinions on what fellow gassers think of the whole freezing thing. Has anyone had an instrument treated or a baseball bat?

Thanks guys.
jamie

[bubba966]

Well if you don't mind mailing your stuff...

http://www.onecryo.com/

They do a very good job cryo'ing stuff (they actually do it right, meaning it's a dry cryo process they use).

They're also very, very reasonable in their pricing.

I had them cryo my rear brakes (both drums & shoes) on my truck as well as a bunch of razor blades, utility knife blades, & pocket knives.

The brakes are wearing very, very slowly. Much slower than non-cryo'd brakes. And that's good because that was the whole reason I cryo'd them. Hopefully I'll never have to touch my rear brakes again. And when the time comes to deal with the front brakes they're getting cryo'd.

The utility knife & razor blades are awesome after cryo. They hold an edge so much longer than non-cryo'd blades. I can't believe how long they the hold an "as-new" edge. I'm using about 1 blade every month or so at work compared to the one every week or less for a non-cryo'd blade.

The pocket knives are a lot stronger after cryo. They are able to sharpened to a lot sharper finish, and hold that edge a lot longer as well. But they're also a lot more of a pain in the ass to sharpen after the cryo since the blade is a good bit stronger.

I've had various cabling cryo'd before in the same manner that One Cryo does. But most of that was done before I got the cable. Though there was one cable (center channel speaker cable) that I had done after I'd owned it for some time. It was clearer after cryo.

Now I wouldn't cryo a whole piece of electronic gear though as a lot of plastics don't much care for cryo.

And One Cryo does have a good deal of experience in cryo'ing bats. In fact they used to have a line they sold that was made for them and then they cryo'd them.

[Scott F.]

Hiya Jamie,

1. Does anyone in the STL area provide this service?

There are a few guys in town that do cryoing. They are mainly machine shops for parts and race engines. I've talked to one or two of them. One of teh guys said he'd done some trumpets and saxes. He also said he'd done some gold balls too. Aparently you get another 20-30 yards out of a cryo'ed ball. If it were me, that would put me deeper into somebody elses fairway, but thats just me.

2. Has anyone had gear treated (by anyone) or bought treated gear?

Well, I've done the poor mans cryo on some tubes. I dropped them in my deep freeze (0 deg) and left them for about two weeks, then I let them thaw and put them back in for another week. Some will dispute this but I'm here to tell you the 300B's I did sounded a fair amount smoother. The harshness was gone as was the grain.

3. What does treatment add in your opinion and is it worth it?

It doesn't add a thing. What it does is stress relieve the metal and all of the solder joints. When you do a before and after, the after sounds much much smoother. The grain and etchyness of the sound tends to go away. By all means, its defintely worth it.

4. What kind of money are we talking about to get something treated either locally or via mail order.

I've got a pricelist from a guy out in Sullivan around here somewhere. These are some prices I picked off the web some time back (I forget where from though).

Vacuum Tubes $2.00   
Amplifiers $50.00   
Power Supplies $30.00
CD Players $30.00   
CD's $2.00   
DVD Players $50.00
Power Cords $15.00
Interconnect Cables $15.00   
Speaker Cables $15.00

> Has anyone had an instrument treated or a baseball bat?

I think Mike D had one of the horns cryo'd, or maybe it was blackmore I forget. He said it completely changed the sound of the trumpet.

I'd be interested, maybe. I'd sure like to talk to whomever is doing it to make sure they have done electronics before or at least have a good knowledge of what gets destroyed when it freezes (so I wouldn't loose a piece of gear).



Speaking of golf, how many of us are there that play? Jamie, I know you do, is there anybody else?

Maybe we could do a GAS Golf outing sometime soon? I've got a brand new driver (Taylor Made R-7) that I'm itching to swing some more.

[mrmusic]

Two more cents for Jcrane.  Cryo does work for audio equipment, and you can do it yourself.  We cryo all new preamps in dry ice.  It is -109 degrees and will not hurt anything.  It does make the sound smoother and less grungy, with better liquidity,too.  One half pound of dry ice for every pound of whatever you intend to treat is about right.  You might want to prefreeze large components to give them a jump start before going into the dry ice.  Use a large enough insulated cooler, and stuff all empty spaces with insulation of some kind.  Leave the item(s) in there for at least 8-10 hours and bring them out to warm up naturally.  They will attract lots of condensation, so wrapping them with a towel is helpful.  Condensation is pure water, and will not harm the component.  Be sure to give it plenty to time to totally dry off before attempting to power up.  Things will sound strange for a few hours, but will definitely get better in a day or two.  This question is bound to draw fire from a few 'scientists' so I'll add that we have blind tested cryo'd and non cryo'd  pieces and the treated ones were always identifiable.  By the way, some metals do better with dry ice because it doesn't make the metal brittle.

Good luck, have fun, learn!

Chuck

SUPERPHON

[Mike D]

I too have been curious about cryoing my cables, especially my autoformers.  

My Bb trumpet was croed in 1998.  The process brought the horn down to 300 degrees below zero.  The temp dropped one degree per minute until it reached the bottom.  It stayed there for a while (I forgot how long) and then it slowly returned the trumpet back to room temp one degree per minute.  This process took a weekend to complete.  The result was very interesting.  The horn was more responsive.  It played better and may have sounded more open.  I perceived more midrange in my tone.  How that would translate to tone quality in electronics, I'd like to know.

Golf: I've never played except on a driving range, putt-putt, and in high school PE with wiffle-golf balls.    But I can talk one heck of a game!  

I'm in!  

[Scott F.]

...I've got 109db horns powered by some really nice and REVEALING electronics...

Hiya JDUBS,

Did you say HORNS? You stopped in the right Circle

I think St Louis is the center of the tube and horn universe. We've got Altecs (multiple pairs), Lowthers, Fostex (multiple pairs), Bozak Concert Grands, 45's, 10's, 2a3's, 300b's, 845's and triode strapped EL-34's. It's SET heaven here in town. And those that aren't doing SETs are using big PP tube amps to drive all kinds of cool speakers (Merlins, Maggies, Meadowlarks).

So tell us, what are you running?

[Mike D]

JDUBS:

How about a picture too?  

[Scott F.]

Well, that was easy.

I mentioned in a (deleted) post that if that conversation continued to spiral out of control, I'd nuke it. So thats what I did. Rather than invoking Goodwins Law and calling for a halt to posts in this thread when I was called a Nazi, I chose to remove selected posts (mine included).

Feel free to to continue post. JDUB, sorry about zapping you post but I left a fragment on one where you mentioned your horns. JohninCR, please don't continue to agrue as your resulting posts will be deleted. If you have issues, find The Borg.



So JDUB, tell us more about your system.

[JDUBS]

Well, that was easy.

I mentioned in a (deleted) post that if that conversation continued to spiral out of control, I'd nuke it. So thats what I did. Rather than invoking Goodwins Law and calling for a halt to posts in this thread when I was called a Nazi, I chose to remove selected posts (mine included).

Feel free to to continue post. JDUB, sorry about zapping you post but I left a fragment on one where you mentioned your horns. JohninCR, please don't continue to agrue as your resulting posts will be ...

Hey guys!  Happy to post my system specifics.  From source to sound output:

WD 250gig hardrive partially filled with .flac files -> Wired SB3 modded by Red Wine Audio -> Custom Slagel transformer volume control (dual outputs) -> Red Wine Audio Clari-T / Crown K2 -> Oris 150 horns with AER MD-3 drivers (Clari-T) / JBL 4648 theater bassbins (Crown K2).

I'm also working on getting an analog front end together.

I'm really please with how the system has turned out so far.  Of course there are things I'd really like to try, including a Charlize t-amp and a pair of Azura horns (might be close on these).  

Oh yeah...cabling is Stan Warren's latest cryo-treated stuff.

-Jim

[Scott F.]

Very cool

I've only heard the AER's in the Oris once, that was in Ron Wellbornes room back at the original MAF. They were very nice. I'd love to hear them in my Medallion cabinets.

I've got a pair of Altec 416's I'm thinking of mounting in a pair of Imperial corner horns. Right now I'm just using a pair of 15" Goodmans in a aperiodic loaded box, corner loaded. They do just fine. I'm hitting just above 25hz in room (pretty darned flat too).

[DeadFish]

Hey guys!  Happy to post my system specifics.  From source to sound output:

WD 250gig hardrive partially filled with .flac files -> Wired SB3 modded by Red Wine Audio -> Custom Slagel transformer volume control (dual outputs) -> Red Wine Audio Clari-T / Crown K2 -> Oris 150 horns with AER MD-3 drivers (Clari-T) / JBL 4648 theater bassbins (Crown K2).

I'm also working on getting an analog front end together.

I'm really please with how the system has turned out so far.  Of course there ar ...

Ah, another system to lust after!!   ...well maybe not so much LUST after, but sure would like to hear it.  

Your definitely playing in a friendly playground with that system, JDUBS.
I keep playing my RWA Teac into my Altec 19s, along with (ahem!) cryoe'd Nitro speaker wire from Bolder Cable.  I really didn't want to like that wire, but it was so much more ...succinct than anything else I had had in my system and would have no reserves to try other cryoed parts in there, though like someone said earlier, worry on putting plastics thru the process.  I'm even a little spooked putting glass tubes thru the process, but will follow other's leads.. Would like to hear how the metal in my speakers would be enhanced with treatment, but sure would be nervous about how the vintage cone materials might be savaged...
 Someone bring some cryoed tubes over, okay?  

Excuse me while I 'stir the pot'  ( ) but I have to admit a certain ...amusement when some consider true cryoing as 'voodoo' when the true science can be so simply grasped......

 "Once in a while you get shown the light,
          in the strangest of places, if you look at it right..."

Or maybe its just me accepting truth in mystery resolved.

Thanks for keeping the thread alive guys, especially with civility I wouldn't always be finding at mine own fingertips...

Best Regards to All!

DeadFish

[JDUBS]

Thanks guys!  

Its been a long time coming.  I actually forgot one crucial piece to the equation...the Marchand XM-44 crossover which rolls the signal for the JBLs off at 160hz (12db.).  Awesome crossover, for anyone considering one!

Here's a lame picture of the right speaker of my system.  Will get some better ones up soon.

http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=6689

-Jim

[Scott F.]

Crucial is right!

Lets see, five of us are doing active crossovers here (Steve, Sturgus, Alan, Vasu and me). Most people don't understand how big of an improvement the active crossovers make.

Very nice system BTW.

[Mike D]

I also have a Crown K2.    That amp is quite the phenom in terms of power/efficiency.  It powers the bass panels of my magnepan IIIAs with a driverack 260 digital crossover.  Rogue M150s run the mid/highs.

As far as I know, the driverack 260 offers most of the fun of the DEQX for 1/3 or less off the cost.  Currently, I have the slopes are set to 48 db linkwitz-riley at 343 hz.  

I swore I would never spend the money on an active crossover until I heard SteveK's Dahlquist running his IIIAs biamped.

[Scott F.]

oops, sorry Mike, I forgot your new XO on the Maggies