The Great Cryo'd Outlet Test

Stehno...As I said in an earlier post, there is a 50 percent chance of guessing right, or wrong, so one guy's test doesn't prove much, one way or the other.

What I take away from this is:
(a)...(as I said before) I made a serious effort to see if I could hear any effect and can no longer be accused of not listening.
(b)...If there is any effect it is definitely not the dramatic "jaw dropping" improvement that some folk suggest.

In my opinion it can all be system dependent. There might also be an issue with how clean the AC power is including the noise on the AC line.

Zaikesman, So if anyone hears an improvement from a cryo treated out let in your opinion they are deluded and foolish? But if a guy tube rolls for weeks that's science. Oh brother! Wow. I bet it would take several years of A/B comparisons to determine which of two pairs of IC cables "sounds better". I'm just glad you seem to enjoy your system. It shocks me that you own a tube amp at all. Are you sure that it sounds better than your old amp? It could all be in your head? But of course you did an A/B.

Four days of burn in on a fridge is probably the problem. I have installed cryo treated Hubbell 8300's from Alan Kafton(which are plated) that were burned in on a Audio Dahrma in the systems of two freinds. There is no tizzyness, the space opens up,the bass goes deeper, the highs are more extended, and the dynamics improve.All this happens right away and just gets better over the next day or two. This again, is repalcing contractor grade outlets that cost 68 cents. (I know "it's not scientific")

Burn in of a cryod outlet takes time. As I mentioned before the top half of my Porter Port wasn't used for an extended period of time(the jumpers are not broken and my front end has been run off the bottom half for at least a year and a half with both the CD player and the pre left on). Mine was "cooked" on an Audio Dharma which I think is the way to go. I plugged the front end into the top half and it sounded very bright(tizzy?) and the bass was a bit wooly. This is what these things sound like when they need more burn in. If these outlets have sat around for an extended period of time they need a real burn in again to be "scientific". You do believe in burn in Zaike? You can't A/B that though. Have fun tube rolling. Science......Maxgain walks away shaking his head.

Well, at least everyone has been honest!

As Zaikesman has pointed out, there are lots of variables here and both "tests" (as well as everything I have done) may not be particularly scientific.

So do the results so far invalidate my (or other peoples' positive) experiences? Not in my opinion, I'm quite comfortable with what I have found and what I hear (whether it be psychological or not!).

But this excercise clearly does show (at least in my opinion) something that I wrote here a few years ago in my review of the World Power receptacle. And that is that if you are using multiple receptacles within a system, while a sonic change may be detected, it is difficult to really ascertain the true character of any receptacle. Also, any of the experimentation I have done involved living with the same receptacle throughout the system (wall and line conditioner-so at that time it was 3 receptacles, all identical) for a few months and then inserting new receptacles. For me, it was much easier to hear differences with my system in this situation as you listened to the same system (and music) for a long period of time before making a change. In my experience, under these circumstances, changes for good or bad are pretty clearly audible. Just a couple of thoughts, whether they be scientific or not. As I've said to Zaikesman before, even if he does replace his receptacle at the wall he is only part of the way there, as he isn't going to really be able to make a judgement until he replaces the recepacles in his line conditioner as well. And that is more work than most people want to do.

Hdm,
So true...at least a few of us are happy with cryo'd outlets :-))!
Best regards...