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Cryogenic treatment of tubes? Anyone with experience positive or negative?

I just ordered a matched pair of 12au7 mullard NOS tubes for my primaluna amp. Ordered them from upscale audio.  They offered the cryo treatment, so for only 8 bucks more, I got it.

wondering if anyone has done enough listening to have an opinion on the sonic benefits, or the technical reason why it makes (or does not make) a difference.
meiatflask

Showing 3 responses by hifiman5

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hifiman5
1,611 posts
 
George,

Thanks for sharing the engineer's perspective!  Until proven otherwise through I'm sticking' with what's workin'.
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hifiman5
1,611 posts
 
Not wanting to be the contrarian here but I have had very good results with Gold Lion 12 AU7s from Cryoset.  The pair in my linestage just stay quiet!  I have two more of the same in boxes in the stereo room closet waiting...
hifiman5's avatar
hifiman5
1,611 posts
 
@georgehifi  My experience with the tubes mentioned above is just the opposite of what you posit.  I've had replacement tubes waiting in the wings for some time, expecting that my tubes would be getting noisy by now and would need to be replaced.  Not so.  They were quiet from the get-go and remain so.

Where I had trouble was with NOS tubes which got noisy so quickly that buying more of them after several tries just didn't make sense to me.  As always YMMV.
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