cryo

[proud indian]

I cryoed a set of 6DN7' and a set of Mullard 3S4. I put then in today and all I can say is that it is REALLY worth it. I had done the same with my Decware amp and did notice good results, buy on this gear, it has a great impact on the sound.

shreekant

[Wormwood]

What do you mean by 'Cryo' - how and for what time period.

Thanks


Stephen

[earwaxxer]

I though 'cryo' was like a liquid nitrogen treatment or something like that.

[4krow]

Naaah, in Wyoming, we just leave 'em out back for the night. That would change anything.

[proud indian]

If you Damp stuff and keep the racing car concept in mind, then you may be missing out on the cryo bit.

shreekant

[VoltSecond]

Do you know the temperature and cool down profiles they used?

[proud indian]

Basically....

1)It takes about 15 hours to bring it down to the  -190 levels
2) Stay's there for about 30 hours
3) is brought back to normal in another 15 hours.

However the guy says that the entire process takes about 80 to 85 hours and it also depends on the kind of stuff that is being treated. He also says that earlier liquid nitrogen was only being used and now even helium is used. He adapts his process based on the material to be cryoed   ...... ie glass may crack etc.

You will have to break in the cryoed parts again.

Forget the soundstage etc etc. For me it makes it smooth. Best results I have found is on tubes and cables ( copper).

shreekant

[underdawg]

I have compared sound, reliability, life from cryo and no cryo tubes.
From my testing over the years here is what i experienced:
1. Sound - definitely different , dont have golden ears so cant say which is better
2. relibility - cryo by far - tubes fail overtime not imediate nuclear explosion lol
3. tube life - really depended on unit used in sorry, appeared equal to me

These are just my observations of cryo parts since I started getting them done at my days at Varian in the nineties.

I also have had cables and complete units cryo before, sound on cables different use, whole units do not know but was free so tried it.

[Doc B.]

My experience has been that cryo seems mostly to accelerate the break in process. That is to say a newly built cryo treated cable will probably sound pretty much like a well broken in cable.  And I wonder if the stats for reliability might get skewed a bit by the fact that stuff sometimes breaks in the cryo process itself, thus taking it out of the loop before it shows infant mortality in actual use. Years ago I spoke with a guy who was cryo treating finished solid state amps and he mentioned that internal components would fall apart now and then. I remember Terry Cain talking about taking Fostex drivers to a guy who cryo'd agricultural implements. Often the magnets would fall off. Terry's impression was that the cryo treatment was softening the fibers in the cone like a lot of play time would.

[underdawg]

you are correct doc , most speakers cannot survive cryo and very few vendors will attempt to do them.

[4krow]

I am sure that everything under the sun(pun intended) has been cryoed just to see what happens....here kitty kitty kitty....Anyway, Lee valley has tried it in the past on plane blades, but saw little to no effect on the ability of the blade to keep a sharpening longer. But I am always game for what works, works. I do wonder though that if a tube is cryoed, then when heated to operating temp, does it nullify some of the intended effect of the process? I have had it done to tubes in the past, but also the exact proccess looks to differ from one lab to another.

[underdawg]

You can ask Dave at PI AUdio about cryo process, just google PI Audio.