Cryogenically treated cables

millercarbon
Cryo is nothing more than a chest freezer into which goes everything from tubes to cables to crankshafts, custom hunting knives and French Horns. The expense is all in cooling mass to near absolute zero, something that happens only slowly over a period of days immersed in liquid nitrogen. Then after a few days the nitrogen is allowed to boil off and the whole thing comes back to room temp.

This is the reality of cryo. Anyone touting anything even slightly different than this is either lying or clueless because, get this, physics is physics. Its only at the extreme low temp of cryo that the molecular changes happen, and there just ain’t nothing more to it than that.

>>>>>OK, REALITY CHECK. Liquid Nitrogen cryo is -300 F. Absolute zero is -460 F. So, in REALITY the standard cryo treatment is not anywhere near absolute zero. Hydrogen cryo is much closer to absolute zero but not commonly used. Also standard cryo treatment doesn’t not (rpt not) involve immersion in liquid nitrogen, which would cause thermal shock. The treatment involves only immersion in the vapor. Even with the two day staged cryo process there is temporary but non-permanent thermal shock that is audible when you first receive the goods. So, waiting several days is required until the cryogenic treatment shockmgors away. Third, as I’ve outlined on these fora previously, home freezer temps of circa -10 F are sufficient to produce very good results for all manner of audiophile stuff, from CDs to cables, to CD players to amplifiers to fuses to speaker drivers, LPs, there is almost no end to it.

Costs vary from Cryo Labs but mostly likely actual costs are between 10 and 15 dollar per pound, and there is probably a minimum charge as well. Plus theee is the cost of shipping both ways which for me, shipping a five pound box of Mercury’s to the lab is about 30 or 40 bucks including insurance.

Home freezer treatment is FREE 🤗 and avoids the one to two week delay of cryo lab. And avoids the expense of cryo lab. Lastly, since permanent molecular changes probably don’t occur for home freezer treatment one can safely assume that cold treatment of audio items does not (rpt not) involve the more homogeneous physical atomic changes wrought by minus 300 degree cryo. Something else is going on as yet unexplained.

Geoff Kait, Machina Dynamica, first in liquid Nitrogen cryo, first in home freezer cryo, first in the hearts of his countrymen. 🥶

Taking days to cool down to whatever temperature in liquid nitrogen seems unexpected, to say the least. At least for things of sizes mentioned above. It may be some counterfeit liquid nitrogen sold on eBay.

One clumsy move with one’s hand while doing it will reveal that getting cold will not take that long. Do not try this at home. Leave it to someone who has done it before for reasons well-established.

Cryogenic treatment of steel for mechanical properties and thermal properties is well understood, and applies to other metals, though they typically do not have the significant changes that steel does.


Some of the properties that are stated for steel after cryogenic treatment, i.e. transformers, are not as well accepted, at least whether the cost justifies the improvement or if it can be accomplished by other means. Even small improvements in electrical transmission efficiency can justify fairly significant equipment cost increases, at least for transformers.


We do know that cryogenic treatment of copper does increase the conductivity, depending on the initial copper quality and processing method, from 2-4%. That would of course be the same as increasing the cross-section 2-4%, or in the case of high frequencies, increasing surface area 2-4%.

If a cable vendor has a very specific construction, that they claim has some specific impedance control, whether we believe that is effective or not at audio frequencies, then cryogenic treatment of those cables is going "break" that design by changing the properties of the conductors.

The corollary is that all those implied "impedance controls" don’t really do anything at audio frequencies at least if cryo-treating the copper always has a positive effect ..... well that or the cryo-treatment provides no audible benefits.

millercarbon1,879 posts11-04-2019 1:26amCryo is another one of those things that have been around and known to work for a very long time now, and yet still it goes on on an the people who haven’t yet learned. My first cryo was brake rotors on my 911. They modulate better at threshold, respond more consistency at temp, and last a lot longer compared to identical factory non-cry rotors.

Which is interesting because when I went looking for someone local to try cryo with my stereo the closest one turned out to be a shifter kart racer who me being a PCA track Instructor we hit it off and he told me all about his business.

Sorry if I’m being too harsh but that last post is mostly pure speculation. The history of cryogenics for audio is long and colorful and well documented. There’s no reason to be so skeptical and reactionary. Heck, I broke three Laws of Physics today already and it’s not even lunchtime.

Skepticism is a basis for advancement.