The Great Cryo'd Outlet Test

Thanks, Eldartford. I received the outlets Friday evening and just installed one of them about 1 hour ago (Sat. 8pm pst).

I broke the middle contact bridges in order to allow connections for my two dedicated lines to that one outlet. (top is a 15amp line for preamp, bottom is 20amp line for amplifier). So two of my three components have the potential to reap benefits, degredations, or nothing from the outlets.

I listened for about 20 minutes. My current outlets are the FIM's (which are made by WoodenHead) and I will say I heard some differences in those 20 minutes. But I won't say for better or worse as I have not yet performed an A/B comparison between the two shipped to me. And thus far I've only listened to a couple of 20 and 30 year old recordings.

Somewhere in the next few days, I'll swap in the other outlet. In the meantime, my wife is trying to steam open the envelope that contains the answer.

I'll keep you posted.

-IMO

They are the same receptacle of course. Ed may have even inadvertently gotten them mixed up! But the cryoed unit is easily identified by something I have done to it. It will be really embarassing for us cryo fans if you can't idenifty it Stehno! My suggestion is to do lots of listening for a week or so with one receptacle and then use the other one. In that situation, my experiences are that the differences are easily idenifiable. I'm not so sure about this quick A-B switching back and fourth when something new is introduced into any system.

Blake,myself I won't be embarased at all if Stehno dosen't hear it.

I had unpluged my front end a week or so ago for a couple of days when some big thunderstorms were crusing through. I pluged the conditioner back in and let the pre amp warm up(ARC SP 9's are notorious for needing forever and a day to stabalize, mine is on all the time other than a situation like this one)for a day or so. When I put a CD into the player everything sounded very bright and the bass was a bit soft. I listened for a while and was puzzled by the sound. I then realized that I had plugged the conditioner into the bottom half of the Hubbell and not the top where it was for all the time since the installation about a year and a half ago. I made the switch and everything was back to normal as far as the sound. The top half just needs to be burned in again as I haven't used it much at all. May seem strange to some of you but it was easy to hear. At least in my system, changes to the power, be it an outlet or a power cord make more than subtle changes to the sound.

Does the fact that these outlets did not come with connecting screws for the bottom mean anything?
Why are they missing?
Are the one set of extra screws and contacts cryo-treated?
Is it safe to assume the upper and lower outlets are both burned -in?

Man! It's like an oven in here. Would somebody PLEASE open a window?

-IMO

Stehno: One outlet I sent to Ed only had one set of connecting screws. I'm assuming he took the outlet with both sets of screws and removed them so that both outlets are identical to you. That means that there could be some confusion with respect to which screws are cryoed and not cryoed; ie. you could be listening to a cryoed outlet with non-cryoed screws and vice versa. Personally, I doubt whether that could have much of an effect on the outcome. I had not used either outlet in a very long time and can't even recall where exactly I had them in use. I believe Ed ran them on his refrigerator for a few weeks, but not sure whether he did each half of each receptacle. If there's any doubt, you could simply pop each one on your fridge or freezer with 3 days or so on each half and I think you'd be fine. Frankly, I'd just go ahead and use them at this stage. Obviously with your wiring situation, you'll need to use both sets of connecting screws with each outlet. Have fun and see if you can hear the difference.

Ed: just out of curiousity, seeing that you sent both outlets to Stehno with only one set of screws in each, did you mark the receptacles at your end before sending them off to identify the cryoed one?