Trying to find someone with a cable cooker in Metro NY
Not to troll or anything but I know someone whose name I shall not mention MG who is a big believer in placing cables as well as other audio items like CDs and even entire components in the oven at low temperature for about an hour or two. Keep in mind I’m not dismissing his idea. I’ve tried it. So maybe a game plan could be a couple hours in the oven 🔥 then a couple days in the freezer. 🥶 Hey, isn’t that what the Polar Bear Club does! |
mahlman, "By the way I found a cooker at Costco I think will work but I have a question. Should I use peanut or sunflower oil?"I have been working on a Cable Friteuse since earlier in this thread ("At the same time, I am working on a concept of Cable Friteusse. If cooking does molecules miracles, frying should elevate it to another level of sound delicacy"). I have been considering different oil viscosities for different levels of smoothness, mainly for mids. Cooker will not do. |
insearchofprat when are you going to change your name to ifoundprat? (many of them it seems) It's friggin amazing I say. By the way I found a cooker at Costco I think will work but I have a question. Should I use peanut or sunflower oil? I figure a light all natural oil will help the transients be much better and allow for a much more transparent sound signal. I figure lard might end up hogging to much of the signal. |
There's got to be a couple of audiophile clubs in a city that big, see if you can find any and ask them. In some audio clubs members will chip in and buy items like this for all members to use. Maybe you know some guys that would go in partners, that way the price is reduced for each person. Good luck, TISH P.S. About 10yrs ago I had to go to San Diego for some medical tests, I saw an ad on Audiogon for cable burn in service there. So I brought my cables with me and went to this guys house and he put them on his cable cooker and I came back a week later and picked them up. Can't remember how much I paid but it wasn't much cause I'm pretty cheap.LOL |
If a Cable Cooker costs more than you want to spend, maybe look at this; https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lis9hj8c-hagerman-frykleaner-tweaks |
...so here I am now, after " listening" more intently, with the jumpers I made of the same wire: the biggest increased has been in what I would describe as 'realness' - that jump you experience from a live presentation. Using the CD 'Blood Sweat and Tears' : the horns are 'more real', brassier with more 'there' - and the percussion presents more clearly ( sharper) and cleaner; the bass is more articulated and precise, and the soundstage is deeper and wider. Surprisingly, the vocals although are more layered as well, move up and back, deeper into the sound stage. Again - in a live presentation - the brass, horns and percussion would probably be more prevalent than the voice (abit unbalanced since the blare of as horn or the strike of of a cymbal, the kick of a bass drum "blurt" themselves completely seperate in volume and punch of a vocal) and I find the music is presented this way - but the bass guitar continues integrated, present yet not necessarily calling attention to itself. Guitar solos and certain elements within the music are 'accentuated' by the recording engineer - and as I had stated in as previous entry - there is more "realness" to the recording... This realness I refer to are not quite the same as the realness presented in a live performance - but are as 'close your eyes' realness of the "music" you are listening to... WOW! I can hardly wait to compare the true bi-wired setup when the next set is defrosted and placed in. More to follow as it develops... |
I would prefer to find someone local, go over and chat some, see his cooker and maybe even have him hook it up while chatting. Or maybe send them to a well respected company that offers the service. Third would be someone well respected here........ What I would not do is find some random stranger on the internet that will "cook" your cables for a fee. What is stopping them from taking your money, waiting a week, and send your uncooked cables back. I guess the bigger question is...... Would you think your system was "transformed" after you got your same cables back. |
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" Although I have a plethora of defrosted food from the freezer I need to use " Hey you are just the guy I need to speak to. I have a bunch of hot sauce in the freezer and I was wondering is it still hot when frozen or do I need to thaw it out for it to be hot? If it is still hot while in the freezer can I heat treat and freeze cables at the same time and accomplish both steps at once? I think frig is a great word choice for this thread. |
... Although I have a plethora of defrosted food from the freezer I need to use (see below *) - I have decided not to invite any of you guys over for an evaluation of my system, and have lunch (even though it would be a free meal for you folks, we'd never be able to agree on a menu - let alone condiments or dessert!)... * Created room in the frig ( is reefer a better term?) so there's more in the freezer 'freezing' (cooking?) including a power cord, a pair of silver interconnects and the other pair of speaker cables and jumpers. Tick-tock... |
OK, let’s get back on track. The great thing about the break-in CD is that it breaks in everything in the system - CD player, interconnects, digital cable, speaker cables and speakers, plus all the capacitors, resistors, wiring, and uh, fuses. Playing music through the system doesn’t provide a signal that is high 🔜 enough in level to even begin to break in things. I did not create reality. It’s just the way things are. |
"...until no more sense can be made of the thread."Any thread that contains recommendations for freezer full of chicken and cables may be senseless. The only one that would beat it may be the thread with liquid nitrogen baths for audio reproduction equipment. Wait, this one has both. And geoffkait. And me. |
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Thanks for the chuckles! - you had me laughing line by line...
" I know you have a serious concern for performance so I thought I would mention some things for you to try. Cooking your cable is important and in order to keep it up to top sonic condition you have to use heat tape on your conductor. I recommend you get one of those plastic wire looms to use for this. Now a word of caution. Use the black plastic ones only because they have a carbon content in them that produces better linear alignment with the electron flow in the conductor. You know how people talk about fast sounds? It is more than what your speaker cone is made of or horn VS direct radiator. The carbon content wire loom + heat tape and the cable will allow your signal to go much faster and this leads to really snappy drum solos. There is an environmental aspect to this too as your use of carbon content plastic acts not only to improve electronic efficiency it acts as a mini carbon heat sink by containing that bad carbon in a place where the environment won't be effected anymore. Have you ever tried golf balls and electrical tape rolls to isolate your speakers and amps from vibrations? There is a first rate research scientist I have no doubt you could relate to here with his system. https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=hug&m=182196 |
insearchofprat, Nobody is yelling here. One likes to be the star with ideas that are often unusual while rarely easy to support. The other one, reading it, gets loose associations planted in what he has dealt with before. It is nothing more than friendly exchange of ideas. Maybe "keeping tabs and reality check" at times. If you follow these threads, you will see many unusual approaches. Cable Cookers, liquid cables, some boxes as integral part of a cable, and what not. Some of these things seem simple (Cable Cooker), while some may be much more difficult to accomplish (liquid cables, I would guess). As much as freezing a cable is simple, even in liquid nitrogen it is not a big problem despite me disouraging you from such foolishness, it will be hard to find anyone with any merit who will argue hard against many things having their optimal temperature. If we take cables this seriously, they may need to be at the right temperature to perform their best. Not that I believe that cables are as alive as some imply around here, but if we play with theories let’s think of doing everything right and not just pick and choose based on.....what exactly? |
Glupson, geoffkait ...it's a shame that I can gleen reasonable, useful information from you both - but neither of you can avoid yelling "... ON GUARD! Prepare to die ..." at each other! Maybe I should get back into topic by beginning to ask about wire treatment via CD burn-in: reactions of those who have used it and conclusions... |
You missed your calling, glubson. You should have been a writer for the Pee Wee Herman Show. 🚴♂️ Moving right along, after such good luck with cables, what else can we freeze and get a boost in performance? 🥶 The answer may surprise you. 🤭 I have more tricks up my sleeve that The Amazing Randi 🐇 🐇 🐇 |
Back to thermal influences on food, electronic equipment, and humans. Cable freezing, cooking, and simmering. Most, if not all, of the things that surround us have their optimal temperature at which they perform their best. Ranges of optimal temperatures are frequently very narrow. With highly-sophisticated entities they can be within 3-4-5 degrees. Why is there no talk about maintaining these optimal temperatures for cables, or whatever else (this thread is about Cable Cooking so let’s stay with that)? Would it not be beneficial to have some warming/cooling device that would maintain the cable’s temperature at optimum? That might be more effective than sticking a cable in the freezer for a day, two, or three just to have it warm up within a half a day that follows it. What are the world’s greatest minds of audio reproduction doing? Where are the dealers? Where are the fans? Where are the threads on audio forums? It is 21st century. Possibilities are endless. Let’s get a little bit more sophisticated and caring than this stone-age approach of sticking a cable in ice. Cable that goes through the tube filled with fluid at constant/optimal temperature. That is what we need, Cable Simmerers, not Cable Cookers and freezers. Well, of course, we do need to discuss what the optimal fluid for this application might be. |
mahlman Thanks for the chuckles! - you had me laughing line by line... Who the $#%& is Jeff Merwin? Maybe he has a cable cooker I could borrow, or works in a cryo place? If you have contact info for him, I'll make the effort to contact him (and of course follow his recommendations to the letter...). Believe that I have met most requirements as you stated - but in trying a paver on top of the CD player, it slipped and now have a jagged hole in the top (thank goodness its not a affected the tray mechanism). Cannot use pavers on top of speakers - speakers have a pyramidal shape and are difficult to balance them on top (tried shock-cording them, from top across the base - but with heavy drum solos they rock precipitatiously ). Would send pics, which would make You Chuckle - especially with the yellow tennis balls (Must Be New - and everybody knows that the Yellow ones hold the internal pressure better and longer) in the Orange Plastic Juice Container tops, on the Pink board insulation. Colorful and rather Post-Modern architectural looking (like a Portland Oregon building)... But the most important thing is IT SOUNDS REALLY GOOD! |
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I never turn my integrated or my CD off: they are either in rest mode or playing music... Taking your other comments with a critical eye. I think I'm gonna let the electrons do whatever they do... But I am unafraid to try uncommon materials and methods: Maybe sound is affected - just by my interior design 'intuition' of having several different types and sizes of crystals on the integrated amp, specifically (logistically?) placed above the power cord connection, and above the CD drawer... Or Maybe its my use of tennis bàlls in Tropicana Yellow Plastic Bottle Tops, for isolation with rubber and particleboard 2" squares below each equipment foot, on top of 2" Pink Insulation Foam Board. Speakers with the same isolation... My friend ( with the spectacular custom Italian speakers, All Naim electronics, top-of-the-line Luna cables, space-age-looking 200 lb turntable and rock-solid custom equipment table/rack = about a $400,000+ system) laughs at my puny wacko music maker - but it makes me happy. AND THAT TO ME IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT! " I think your real name is Jeff Medwin. However on to your reality. You do know all that stuff does not work right unless you have the same day of production on the plastic bottle tops. Cosmic rays vary each day and this effects plastic while being molded so you need to date align them so they will be cosmic ray aligned for your system. Also the tennis balls need to be the same type and manufacturer and come from the same lot number to be consistent. Have you tried concrete pavers on your speaker tops yet? It really dampens down erratic sonics emission from your speakers and will smooth out all the little jagged edges your sound has from cabinet resonance. You don't happen to have any pictures of your setup anywhere do you? I would love t see your work!! |
glupson Maybe a cable cooker is such a secret item, that if you won' t pay $200 to try it, or spring for the unit itself for $1000 - you are just SOOL... BUT I am truly sorry to hear your reluctance to try something just because you don't want geoffkait to be right. Give the guy a break - he instructed me and motivated me to try the 'freezer' method... Again: Thanks geoffkait... |
mahlman I never turn my integrated or my CD off: they are either in rest mode or playing music... Taking your other comments with a critical eye. I think I'm gonna let the electrons do whatever they do... But I am unafraid to try uncommon materials and methods: Maybe sound is affected - just by my interior design 'intuition' of having several different types and sizes of crystals on the integrated amp, specifically (logistically?) placed above the power cord connection, and above the CD drawer... Or Maybe its my use of tennis bàlls in Tropicana Yellow Plastic Bottle Tops, for isolation with rubber and particleboard 2" squares below each equipment foot, on top of 2" Pink Insulation Foam Board. Speakers with the same isolation... My friend ( with the spectacular custom Italian speakers, All Naim electronics, top-of-the-line Luna cables, space-age-looking 200 lb turntable and rock-solid custom equipment table/rack = about a $400,000+ system) laughs at my puny wacko music maker - but it makes me happy. AND THAT TO ME IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT! |
insearchofprat, The only thing anyone can say is "good for you". That is frequently used instead of "whatever" but I really mean it. At some point, not so long ago, a well-known person around here was preaching that orchestra would, in almost those terms, be sitting wider apart and what not once the cover was taken off the amplifier. It would improve/spread even further if some ties inside would be cut. In some sense, orchestra was incarcerated inside the box and would be freed with these manuevres. As it happens, most of the people were ridiculing this fairly extravagant concept. He was blaming everyone on not being right as they had never tried. So I tried. I took an old amplifier I had, which happened to have also been the one he was very familiar with, and unscrewed the cover. Nothing happened. Nothing that we were told would happen. I reported it to him and was met with dismissive statements how I did not do enough and I had just scratched the surface. Basically, failure of his imagination to be reproduced was my fault and not the fault of his bizarre idea. I do not doubt that he had heard different things, but after my experience and any logic applied, it was more likely observer’s bias than anything else. If I were not disinterested enough, I would stick some cables into refrigerator and report back to you. However, I cannot let even the slightest chance of it working materialize. That would make geoffkait right and that is a big no-no. I am still puzzled that you could not find anyone in New York metro area to lend you a Cable Cooker. What do people do? Use it every day? |
glupson Just because I critically listen doesn't mean that any of the 'improvements' listed are hugh - but if I hear 'um, I hear 'um. Remember: I'm working with $7 worth of 12g solid core copper, vinyl-jacketed wire made into a homemade pair of twisted wires speaker cable - so my improvements could be enormous! - or they could still be well below the WireWorld $350 speaker cables presentation, offered to me by a seller who has a cable cooker, rarely used, but offered to cook my cables for $200. My electronics are good: vintage Marantz SA-8001 SACD Player, JOB INT Integrated Amp and vintage Gershman Avant Garde RX-20s; interconnect from CD to INT is (again) vintage Harmonic Technologies Pro-Silway MKlll (using DAC in the Marantz) or Toslink plastic fiber Optical Cable into the JOB INC (using the DAC in it). Power Cords are no-name from a vintage purchase to the Marantz and the Goldmund/JOB Sweetcord into the JOB... MY SYSTEM was around $6500 (+ speaker wire...) Doing the experiment obviously proves to me that you should not simply reject an idea just because it seems ludicrous - you just don't know until you experiment and find out for yourself. Sometimes the problem is that people are afraid of looking foolish by trying something that they reason IT JUST CAN'T MAKE A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE! AND just because my cheapo speaker cable reacted well to a freezer treatment doesn't mean that a complex specifically designed cable would react as well (and in the listeners opinion - improve the cables performance) - or does it? You (or anyone) can't tell me either way UNTIL you/they try it. AND MAKE THEIR OWN EVALUATION! This experiment leads me to try almost any other treatment with other new sets of the same twisted wire: Cable-cooked, Cry-frozen...why not? My system has been improved but I can't tell you by how many $$$ - I don't care about that. My system is more enjoyable and I am very happy to sit back and let it play for now... |
insearchofprat, I am not disputing that you hear differences and that they are for better. However, the list is so long and all-inclusive that it seems a bit exagerrated. A casual reader may conclude that sticking her/his cables in the refrigerator for a couple of days will transform $1500 system into $150 000 system. |
Say insearchofprat here is something for you to think about. Great satire by the way whether intentional or accidental. You do know you have to keep from having any dips in elevation in your cables don't you? Electrons can puddle there in the dips and it can cause a popping noise when you first power up your amp. This is because the puddled electrons join the inrush of new ones and cause a temporary surge of power you will hear as a pop in your speakers. If you have a gentle slope from the amp down to the speakers with no sags anywhere all the electrons will drain off into the speaker each time you shut down and this will eliminate the pops. I also recommend rare earth heavy metal conductors as there is less space between atoms for the electrons to puddle up in so it will reduce pops even if you have dips. |
Evaluating the effects on the sound after in-freezer treatment of my homemade 12gauge Solid Core Copper vinyl-jacketed speaker cables and jumpers: 2-8' lengths, twisted; connections to JOB INT and GERSHMAN AVANT GARDE RX-20 as bare wire. Immediately apparent: Increased sound level (from same vol setting) Wider and deeper sound; more 'layered' sound More focused sound: More 'air' around instruments and voices in the sound stage; more defined sound Cleaner, clearer (?) sound; appears to have faster presentation Increased PRaT: more rhymic, toe-tapping, head-bobbing Eagerly looking forward to comparing speaker cables with jumpers to true individual bi-wire... So impressed with the sound changes I hear - over time, I will treat interconnects and power cords to a couple days in the freezer and frig... Modifying discussion: has anybody else attempted the home freezer treatment? |
mahlman One of my audio blunders regards 3 items: University S6 speakers played with a McIntosh MA-2105 (no preamp), and Acoustat 2+2s: got rid of all over the years, and would go back in a heartbeat, especially to the Univ/McI combo sans preamp... Regarding the "frozen" speaker cables with jumpers: sound good so far - obviously different than before. DON'T CARE WHY - but it is noticeable to me. Notes to follow... |
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As a side topic, I would love to hear a well set-up Klipsch LaScala or
Klipschorn (or maybe better yet a restored/upgraded Altec VOTT or
similar) played through a nice medium-powered tube amplifier. I believe
I may have taken the wrong path 20 years ago by not starting out with a
pair of high efficiency Klipsch speakers. The whole amplifier thing
would have been so much easier by not needing high power and I suspect
the dynamics and life-like realism of live music would have been easier
to approximate in my home. I am currently having a pair of SOTA 600 wpc
+/- amps built for me so I am too far down the road to switch to horns
now, but if I were starting over.....
" Klipsch is very efficient. I think the very lowest of the older Vintage gear, which is all I fool around with, is the Forte at 98db and then Cornwalls at 98.5 db with Chorus next at 101db with the La Scala and the KHorn at 105db. I have run a set of MCM 1900's that had a passive crossover with one 200 watt per channel amp and never turned it all the way up. One of the nice things about Klipsch is the size of the community and if you search you will find someone not to far away who will let you listen to their system. The Klipsch forum is a good place to start asking for nearby owners and obviously I think Klispch is the best bang for the buck at the very least and in the better pro gear simply the best all the way around. I have three Altec A-7's in my shop right now being restored and they are the only ones besides Klipsch I will fool with. Very mellow sounding and require little power but not quite as life like as Klipsch and if you like to hear and feel percussion Klipsch is the right choice. Classical and Jazz and acoustic are really nice on Altecs. It is never to late to try Klipsch and there are generally some for sale near where ever you are fairly often. They won't last long unless very overpriced and the bonus is a huge dedicated group of current owners who will help you restore and upgrade things like crossover capacitors. You can get replacement drivers and parts for speakers 50 and 60 years old no problem and they sound really good. Not one other speaker company can claim this except perhaps the Altec Lansing JBL group. All this expensive stuff you read about like Wilson and the rest are here today and gone tomorrow and none have the longevity of Klipsch and the huge market of good used and upgrade new parts that Klipsch does. I didn't intend to become a Klipsch "nut" when I first started looking into audio but I did become one when I saw what I could get for my money and have never regretted it. |
