Why "Cryo" anything?

Germanboxers: you've actually flipped the "religion argument" around; it is religious "zealots" who demand that the non-believers "get with the program" and believe in God (or they will go to hell), regardless of whether God's existence can be proven. The (religious) non-believers are (usually) not "zealous" in their non-belief, actually they may not care one way or the other at all.

Using your religion anology, are the nay-sayers in the cryo debate actually the "zealots" in this case, trying the keep the audio world safe from "pseudoscience?"

In the debate over religion/God, everyone can (in theory) make his mind up one way or the other based on personal experience - Sunday school, listening to sermons, perception of the world, etc. But the difference here is that (apparently) the naysayers in the cryo debate have made their minds up without experience of any sort. They use scientific text, in excrutiating detail (as opposed to religious text), in the attempt to prove the "heathens" must be "hearing things."

The word "faith" does not have to have the deeper (religious) connotation you suggest. For example, you might take a reviewer's comments on an audio component "on faith." I would argue the word "faith" in this sense is in no way equivalent to "religious faith."

I'll do the right thing here and offer an apology for some of my remarks. No, I wasn't serious about the brake offer. It was a response to the alleged requirement that parts must first be tempered to recieve the benefits of cryo. Normally I would take my own advice and just stop posting as the conversation degenerates. My mistake. I guess the steroid program I'm on is making me more aggressive than usual. Still, no excuse. I do still believe this thread to be a troll however. What I find frustrating is that my sense of science is that many things are observed first and the proof follows. That's what makes us unique. Our curiosity is boiled down to "I wonder why that happens?" Here we have a proposition that it can't be measured therefore it isn't happening. So many of the advances in science have been accidental and cryoing audio gear seems to be one of them. I maintain that my description of speaker cables and the evolution of their "acceptence" as a valid product proves my point. Science still cannot explain why they sound the way they do except in very basic terms. If it could, then there would be DIY instructions for making state of the art speaker cables. The MSE's here have expressed a belief that cryo'ing audio parts cannot have an affect based on their understanding of applied science. As frustratingly curious as I am about things I don't understand I would have posted the threadhead in a different way. I would have asked if anyone had a theory about why cryo'ing audio parts would make a difference in light of the indisputable, widely held fact that people do hear changes whether good or bad. Honestly, the attack by the naysayers is more along the lines of "it's in your head" which is insulting to the vast majority of people who's hearing is good enough to discern minute differences between other non-contovertial areas of audio. Why this is ignored as real is where I get my buttons pushed. Still, it's my responsibility to control myself, not yours. I'm sorry.

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Lugnut,
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Nice summation and great post. You are fogiven, come home.
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Rgds,
Larry
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I dont really know anything about the cyrogenically process or if it works for audio applications but as far as I am concerned empirical evidence is a part of the scientific method. This includes experiments such as double blind tests, ALthough everyone has the right to feel that someones experiment was improperly done but to say that dbt's are difficult I really dont think so in the big scheme of things. Of course many EE's think that all is known and in a few years of college everything is passed to them but in reality this is not the case. If someone is not even willing to listen to a cryod cd because listening is not technical enough maybe this shows a major problem with the way students are taught at colleges. I am just trying to say that most innovations happen by accident and the thoery as to why it works are figured out later, like superconductivity which from my understanding was happened upon
"Superconductivity was first noticed when liquid mercury was cooled to liquid Helium temperatures (4.2K) while its resistivity was being plotted. While approaching that temperature, the resistance was coming down linearly, when all of a sudden it dropped to zero Ohms! Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was performing this experiment in 1911. "
I am sure since then thousands if not millions of hours have been spent trying to figure out exactly how it works using other theories to premote new theories but after almost a hundred years cryogenis is still in its infant stage, as far as I am concerned.
But comparing a change in sound between cryo ing audio stuff and superconducting is a reach, why does any one think that superconductivity is the reason this sounds like a spurious relationship, come on the copper in a cable is not superconductive at room temp. but maybe something has changed. THe human ear is an amazing piece of equipment on I dont think we have the ability to recreate, yet some brush off any thing pretaining to hearing as not too technical?
The following is an exert from ludwig: "The human ear is a truly remarkable instrument. At one point in my life I designed Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) systems for the U. S. military. The primary function of an ECM system is to detect an enemy before he (it's rarely a she) detects you, for self-defense. It is interesting to compare the characteristics of a good ECM system and human hearing:
Comparison of characteristics

Characteristic
Good ECM system
Human hearing
Directional coverage
ECM All directions
Human hearing All directions
Source location accuracy
ECM Within 1-5 degrees
Human hearing About 5-degrees

Ratio of highest to lowest frequency (bigger the better)
ECM 20 : 1
Human hearing 1000 : 1

Ratio of strongest signal to weakest (the bigger the better)
ECM Million : one
Human hearing 32 trillion : one

Human hearing is a superior defensive system in every respect except source location accuracy. Note: Jourdain (page 23) states that human accuracy is 1-2 degrees in azimuth.
In contrast, a military system designed for communications (rather than detection) would typically have a much smaller ratio of highest-to-lowest frequency, no source location capability, and often a narrow directional coverage. For human communication a frequency ratio of 10:1 and a ratio of strongest to weakest signal of 10,000:1 would suffice. The far larger actual ratios strongly imply a purpose other than communication.

This doesnt prove anything except if people are hearing a difference maybe it is worthwhile to take a listen your self and if you hear a differnce maybe after wrapping your head around it you could try to wrap some of the knowledge you have around it . Try to figure out the mystery. What would have happened if everyone beside Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes said something to the effect of "Zero resistance everyone one knows that is immposible there must be something wrong with his instruments and methods, not worth even looking into" Pretty ridicules huh?

Excellent post, Lugnut...I figured this debate was just getting us all a bit too excited.

I do differ from your opinion that the "naysayers" are suggesting that there is no difference in sound. Perhaps I'm only speaking for myself (I don't think so?), but no one has directly said that cryo'ing does NOT make a difference. Some of us have tried it, some have not. My take on the discussion has been that some of us with specific knowledge of materials have questioned the "reasons" some have attributed to the difference, not really that there are no differences. This certainly doesn't rule out mechanisms we are unaware of, but the metallurgy is very well understood, so I'm fairly certain that we need to look elsewhere for the answers.

Autio, I agree that our ears are wonderful devices, but one component of hearing is perception and this is not always reliable. I've found my moods, sickness, exhaustion from a workout, etc all affect how and what I hear. Also, when I listen critically with a friend, sometimes afterward I find myself reversing my thoughts on further listening by myself. What I'm saying is MY hearing/perception is not always as reliable as I would like it to be. Maybe others don't have this problem? Ultimately, it is still the only tool we have to measure our enjoyment of a given component. I'll leave it at that.

Regards,

Jordan