[satfrat]

I'd just like to give a shout out to Cryogenics International   as they cryoed practically my whole system 2.5 years ago. I sent them my BPT, Sunfire Theater Grand 4 processor and 2 Butler Audio 3150 tube hybrid amps. I had them returned in 1 piece, no problems at all with these pieces. I found cryoing to be a worthwhile thing to do for me as I enjoy a black background where only the music comes thru. With the Butlers,their tubes run on evry low voltages and don't get hot so I don't expect the life expectancy to be an issue. If it is, I'll replace them,,, after having them cryoed. It is a very desirable trait,,, this blacker background that results from cryoing.  

Cheers,
Robin

[iGrant]

Robin, thanks. Thats what I wanted to hear, someone who has done their system. I will move on to trying all my gear and then I can A/B them against the untreated. I'll send out unopened products for 'cryogenation' as Moray James decided to call it www.geocities.com/morayjamescables/cryogenation.html

I'll get some our local hi-fi nuts into help evaluate the results and post them (any HFN's from around Calgary PM me if you want to participate). Should be fun and educational. The quotes I have rec'd for doing this are beyond reasonable if it lives up to expectations.

Thanks all for your posts. 80% positive, 20% negative has always been a good balance.

Ian

[satfrat]

My statements are 100% positive as far as sonic results. I did have 1 failure tho that should be mentioned, a Music hall CD-25 CDP that came back in pieces. Seems cheap Korean manufacturing techniques had them gluing everything to the front plate. Glues do not hold up well to freezing and my CDP was a perfect example of this. I probably could have glued stuff back together but I decided to just trash it instead, mainly cuz I was just getting into computer audio and my HTPC could play back any CD I had at the time. I don't think any high end piece of gear should fear cryoing. Now cheap end crap like Music Hall,,, well that's a different tune. I would recommend popping to top to any gear before sending it out and looking at how it's built,,, with nuts & bolts,,, or glue. Nothings 100% when being subjected to -350 degrees below zero. Helps to keep that in mind. 


Cheers,
Robin

[satfrat]

Oh yeah,,, Moray helped me out with lots of beneficial info at the time also. 

[SET Man]

...they cryoed practically my whole system 2.5 years ago. I sent them my BPT, Sunfire Theater Grand 4 processor and 2 Butler Audio 3150 tube hybrid amps....

Cheers,
Robin

Hey!

    Wha? I didn't know you could cryo a whole component!  How do they do that? Dunk the amp in the cryo tank? 

   Anyway, I don't have any experience with this cryo thing. I know it had been proven to change the properties of metal from that I've read. So, I guess it dose have some possibility on certain parts for audio.

   Hmmm.... maybe I should send out the steel and brass horn of my 106 years old Victor to be cryoed and see if that will improve the sound of this old talking machine.

Take care,
Buddy

[satfrat]

...they cryoed practically my whole system 2.5 years ago. I sent them my BPT, Sunfire Theater Grand 4 processor and 2 Butler Audio 3150 tube hybrid amps....

Cheers,
Robin

Hey!

    Wha? I didn't know you could cryo a whole component!  How do they do that? Dunk the amp in the cryo tank? 

   Anyway, I don't have any experience with this cryo thing. I know it had been proven to change the properties of metal from that I've read. So, I guess it dose have some possibility on certain parts for audio.

   Hmmm.... maybe I should send out the steel and brass horn of my 106 years old Victor to be cryoed and see if that will improve the sound of this old talking machine.

Take care,
Buddy

Hi Buddy

http://www.cryogenicsinternational.com/audio.htm

http://www.cryogenicsinternational.com/posfdbk.htm

Here's an article that's at least a couple of years ago that will educated you and others on the process and benefits for cryogenics from Cryogenics International. This article helped me out at the time make an informative decision to take the chance with my system. I'm sure my choice to component cryo had a lot to go with the strength of my sound stage depth in such a small room of mine. Let's face it, the less background noise, the more you're gonna hear into the music, hense more depth. Just 1 of the many pieces that when added together make for something substantial. 

Cheers,
Robin

[DaveC113]

As I understand it the cryogenic process is intended to anneal the metal in tubes

Thanks for saying this, I can't understand the marketing bs that seems to be on every cryo website. The fact is that cryo treating most metals will DECREASE the tensile strength, and INCREASE ductility and resistance to crack propigation. It could possibly relieve some stresses, but I wouldn't be surprised if it created others. In areas where cryo treating helps wear or some other mechanical property, it is likely because the designer could have picked a better heat treat regimen for the product in the first place, or costs were cut in this area... which is pretty common.

As far as tubes, the comparison I'd like to see is after a cryo'ed tube has been in operation for a while, for reasons jules already mentioned.

For items that have crimp or screw type electrical connections, I think cryo'ing these items would result in more contact area for the same amount of clamping pressure, so I can see a possible benefit there. 

Dave

[jules]

Well ... It could work but I think the mechanism is far from clear, even having read some of the web references.

I actually agree with opaquice's comments on heat and annealing and maybe I was wrong to suggest that cryo treatment claims to anneal metal though it does claim to re-arrange the molecular structure somehow.

It still seems likely that the differential heating that's applied to the various components of a tube [after cryoing] is going to re-create stresses because of temperature gradient. Soldering is mentioned in one of the sources as an example of a process that causes stress ... too right! But the same thing surely applies to filaments and other parts of tubes.

Presumably, heater filaments in tubes are made of tungsten therefore the stuff about various different characteristics of steel would not apply and cryo treatment would do nothing.

How does the physics of this statement from Dr. Helmut Trucks stand up to analysis?

We were fortunate to have Dr. Helmut Trucks, P.E., one of the premier materials scientists work with us early on in discovering the mechanisms for the deep cryogenic process. Much of the research up to that time was conducted on steels, and based on austenite (soft carbon) to martensite (hard carbon) transformation as the reason for improvement. Dr. Trucks brought the physics side of the equation to light by stating that cryogenic temperatures removed much of the atoms' built-in kinetic energy, allowing the materials structure to align in a denser, more uniform pattern. This helped explain why materials other than steel responded so well to the deep cryogenic process

Certainly, cooling anything reduces the kinetic energy of atoms and also causes a slight increase in density. When you heat things up again this process is reversed. It happens all the time with pretty much everything other than water/ice.

I don't dismiss this process but I'm skeptical about some of the claims.   

Jules......I have had dozens and dozens of tubes cryo'd over the years (by Cryogenics International).  NONE have ever been damaged, nor have any of the pins loosened.

Thanks Alan ... that's all that matters as far as the potential dangers of differential glass/pin expansion goes.

Who is "Dr. Helmut Truck" anyway  ?

jules

[DaveC113]

You're right, "anneal" may not be exactly whats happeneing, but in at least some cases the effect is similar. The data I saw was stress-strain graphs of cryo vs. non-cryo'ed bicycle spokes, tested on an Instron. I'm pretty sure they were stainless steel, but I'm not sure of the exact alloy... it was a few years ago that I saw the report. The cryo treated spoke was weaker and more ductile than the standard spoke in all cases, but the difference wasn't very large.

As far as the mechanism, or whats happening on a molecular level, I can only guess...  if theres a change of density, thats easily measured, but I highly doubt its happening.

Anyway, I don't doubt claims of sonic improvements, but in the case of tubes I'd like to hear the difference after a couple hundred hours. I'll have to give it a try sometime...

Dave

[iGrant]

Anyway, I don't doubt claims of sonic improvements, but in the case of tubes I'd like to hear the difference after a couple hundred hours. I'll have to give it a try sometime...

Dave

I will do that, set up identical systems, treated and untreated for A/B. Tubes first and keep it up until a tube dies. Unless of course I hear no noticable difference after 100 hours. Thanks for the idea of long term testing. No science, just my and anyone else's ears.

[opaqueice]

Opaqueice:  if you look up "martensite finish temperature", you will find some information on this type of process.  In steels, there is a diffusionless transformation of austenite to ferrite, this being a FCC to BCC transformation.  At room temperature, the conversion is incomplete.  There will be a low temperature  called the "martensite finish temperature, where the transformation is complete.  This is the "type" of transformation utilized in cryogenic treatments.

Barrett, Nix, and Tetelman discuss this on page 311 of "The principals of engineering materials", 1973, Prentice-Hall.

Thanks for the info.

Jules:  it is possible that cooling down and then heating up could leave the material in a different state even though the kinetic energy has been added back.  It would be a kind of hysteresis - for example, as jneutron was describing above, it might be that the crystal structure of the material would change at the very low temperature, and that change might survive some amount of heating.

Why that would be beneficial to audio I have no idea.

[satfrat]

Could it be that when a metal has been cryoed, the molecular structure is more closely bonded so that when electricity is flowed thru it, there's less resistance, hense less noise? Just a thought,,,, 


Cheers,
Robin

[alan m. kafton]

Robin......personally, I think you're on the right track. I've always used the analogy of pebbles or rocks in a stream....remove them and the water flow is smoother and straighter. As the molecular structure becomes more compacted, material voids are reduced and/or eliminated....ergo, fewer "obstacles", reduced "turbulence", improved signal flow.

[jules]

opaqueice might be the best person to comment here but this seems somewhat suspect as a fundamental building block:

Dr. Trucks brought the physics side of the equation to light by stating that cryogenic temperatures removed much of the atoms' built-in kinetic energy, allowing the materials structure to align in a denser, more uniform pattern.

Can atoms have "built in kinetic energy" that we can remove permanently? Is it possible to change the density of a metal at a given temperature? [The alignment does seems possible.]

iGrants idea seems good though I didn't quite understand his method. If you could test two identical pairs of tubes, one treated and one untreated, after 100 hours that would be a useful comparison.

Alan .. the analogies are sort of pleasing but the flow of electrons through a solid is rather different to the flow of water around rocks and pebbles.

One thing that might be worth a mention here is tin [a component of some solders] ... below 13 degrees C tin slowly turns into an grey powdery allotrope. This normally takes time but it has been known to completely destroy organ pipes and I would think corrosion of soldered joints could be a possibility [not in tubes of course].

My tentative view on this is that while it might be possible to make changes and they could be useful for say gun barrels or swords [two of the other gadgets that are supposed to benefit] it would be a huge challenge to retain these properties under the extreme heat changes in an audio tube  .... but this is all supposition isn't it  ?

jules

[nodiak]

Can't really offer anything to the subject, but I do have a cdp that I bought that was modded including being cyroed. Can't compare it to pre-mod/cryo but it does have the coveted "black background" to it's sound. Hope it doesn't have any problems from the process. The concerns of electronic temp fluctuations, metal/solder breakdown seem important for sure. Wonder if there are reports of electronic pieces cryoed years ago.
Don

[opaqueice]

Can atoms have "built in kinetic energy" that we can remove permanently?

No.  Temperature is nothing but the average kinetic energy of the atoms, so once you warm the thing back up the kinetic energy is just as it was.

Is it possible to change the density of a metal at a given temperature? [The alignment does seems possible.]

Yes, at least theoretically.  There are many examples of materials which, at a given temperature and pressure, can exist for some significant amount of time in more than one phase (which might have different densities). 

Ever heat water for tea in a microwave, and then when you add the tea bag had the water explode?  That's a case where the water was superheated - its temperature was above the boiling point - and it was in a kind of metastable equilibrium.  Adding the tea bag disturbed it and let it boil (suddenly!).  Another example is heating water, dissolving salt in it until it's saturated at that temperature, and then very slowly and carefully cooling it.

One key point, though, is that there is (almost) always one phase that is "preferred" (has lower energy), and so the other one is unstable.  But sometimes it's not very unstable and might last for a long time.

My tentative view on this is that while it might be possible to make changes and they could be useful for say gun barrels or swords [two of the other gadgets that are supposed to benefit] it would be a huge challenge to retain these properties under the extreme heat changes in an audio tube  .... but this is all supposition isn't it  ?

Yeah, it does sound pretty implausible.

[opaqueice]

Could it be that when a metal has been cryoed, the molecular structure is more closely bonded so that when electricity is flowed thru it, there's less resistance, hense less noise?

If cryoing really puts metal in a different state, any of its material properties could change, including electrical resistance.  But if so that should be pretty easy to measure, and you'd want to make sure the change (if there was one) lasted for months or years of normal operation - unless you want to be sending in your gear every week for cryo treatment   .

[greg7]

I'm a materials engineer and, in my present capacity as a metallurgist for an aluminum extrusion company, I've investigated cryogenic treatment of tooling and dies at length. It's benefits are a given here. However, I've also investigated its merits in audio. All of what's been said already is correct: in metals it eliminates microvoids and (in my opinion, it being difficult to analyze) eliminates dislocations from the crystalline structure. The microvoid elimination I suspect is very beneficial in and around grain boundaries which, by nature, are simply empy space in the metal.

HOWEVER, with respect to to tubes, I STRONGLY urge caution here over concerns of tube life. You can cryo just about any material safely with the right equipment and procedures, i.e., the guys doing it are worth their salt. It's glue bonds that aren't a good thing to cryogenically treat. Ask a few cryo outfits and they'll tell you that doing speaker drivers, for example, aren't a good idea because of the glue bonds between cone and surround, etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the glass around the tube plate structure is glue bonded to the base. Once that bond is compromised, you lose vacuum and tube life goes out the door. Caveat emptor (and I use tube gear and personally wouldn't try it on tubes unless their cheapo new production ones -- no way would I risk any NOS ones).

[alan m. kafton]

Greg......you are entirely correct in your overview, on all points. The only materials I have found to suffer in any way are silicone, certain rubber products like neoprene, and of course, certain adhesives. The silicone and neoprene tend to shrink and harden during treatment. Some MOV's in power products can crack, due to their thermoplastic coating. Those adhesives (and it's never predictable) that do not survive obviously do not have the temperature coefficient needed to remain intact. But many others do, and repeatedly (I've treated hundreds of cables over the years, for instance). A number of people have cryo treated speaker drivers quite successfully....some have not. All the tubes I've treated for myself and others have come through without incident. I can only attribute this to the careful process that Cryogenics International uses. I've never used any other facility.

[satfrat]

I would just like to add that even tho the tubes in the Butler amps are  hardwired, their amps are completely modular and taking out the tube section would only have been 2 bolts. I didn't do so specifically because of the low voltage these tube ever see (which accounts for their blue glow) and the fact they simply don't heat up. But I hadn't taken into account that the glass is glued onto the base, that's news to me and something I never thought of. Still it's been a good 2.5 years since my component cryoing at Cryogenics International and not so much as a hiccup. The dead quiet background has remained tho. Unlike Greg, i don't know these things about cryogenics as fact but I did a lot of research on the subject before committing myself and I tend to believe what I've read from the experts in the field. Some of the statement made by the those in denial simply don't mesh with what I've read on the subject.

There's a lot out there in this subject of cryogenics, a field that's been around for over 20 years, you need only educate yourself on this and not from what's said on these forums. JMO. 

Cheers,
Robin