Cryogenic treatment of an LP?

Geoffkait - I do know about the anti-placebo and realize that people that don't beleive are less likely to hear a difference.

I was very skeptical of Nordost Sort Kones. Eventually the salesman convinced me to take a set home with the promise that if I wasn't satisfied he'd take them back. I'm not convinced that the difference that I hear is real, but I'm also not convinced that they didn't make a difference so I can't take them back. The problem with them is that they take several minutes to install and remove making A/B comparisons extremely difficult. A friend of mine would describe the difference that he thinks he hears in a very similar way to how I would, but commented that he'd like to hear an instant A/B comparison.

In the case of Sort Kones I can see how it is possible that they could make a difference.

I wasn't convinced about speaker wires making a difference but I have heard a difference between a $7 pair that I took in from the hardware store and some $2k Nordost cables, but the difference wasn't even close to being worth the price.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I have heard a difference in things that I wouldn't have believed without hearing it for myself, but in each of these cases I understand how it could make a difference and my objection was that I didn't consider than any difference would be audible. In the case of cryo-records I simply can't conceive of how anyone would ever think that it could make a difference. It's outside the box of logical reality for me.

Mceljo - It's certainly understandable that one cannot conceive how Cryo-records could make a difference. I suspect until one actually tries these things for himself, in his own system, with his own ears, the preposterous nature of things like cryo-records, wire and fuse directionality, tiny little bowl resonators, coloring the edge of CDs, crystals, Mpingo discs, demagnetizers, ionizers, extremely low frequency generators, things of that nature, there will be a lot of skepticism to overcome. I guess you could say the same about black holes, the big bang, relativity theory, teleportation and the atomic bomb - the preposterous nature of such things makes it extremely difficult to conceive they're real without proof or demonstration.

Does audiogon charge for plugging products and writing in marketing adds in the guise of a thread, or is it just sort of a fringe benefit?

The Easter Bunny is curious about this one. Santa is trying to figure out if cryo'd snake oil is still the same stuff as original snake oil.

I guess you could say the same about black holes, the big bang, relativity theory, teleportation and the atomic bomb - the preposterous nature of such things makes it extremely difficult to conceive they're real without proof or demonstration.

Well, with over 105,000 casualties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I think it's pretty safe to say that the atomic bomb is real.

Stop, please stop! You're killing me - I'm splitting a gut laughing at some of the comments to this post.

This is an example of our "superior" American education system at work. All of you who have never taken a high school or college physics class, please raise your hand. Hmmm, just as I suspected. OK, let's make it easy: the secret word is thermodynamics. Go ahead and Google it, we'll wait...

But back to the OP. In a nutshell, (so-called) cryogenically treating vinyl records is a bad idea for several reasons; but mainly because PVC, like most ethenyl compounds, contain some small amount of asphaltenes that are prone to stress fractures under low temperaures.

Question - what do your LPs ave in common with your driveway?

Answer - ask anyone who lives in Minnesota about how their asphalt driveways look like after a few cold winters. (Hint - not so good)

Class dismissed.