The Great Cryo'd Outlet Test

Zaikesman...Further comment"? I think you pretty much put the lower resistance argument to bed in the posting above. I might only add that citing lowered resistance as an advantage of Cryo is, in general, the kind of misapplied science that, once revealed, tends to discredit an idea rather than to support it. Many years ago I learned that when the Jehovah’s Witnesses pay a call, it's a complete waste of time to argue with them. Who knows...in the end they might turn out to be correct, but in the meanwhile, I'll take a pass. So too with Cryo.

As if I haven't made enough enemies (not really) by skepticism about Cryo, I now declare that almost all power conditioning is unnecessary for equipment with properly designed power supply circuitry. The audio circuits see only DC that has been made from the AC power, and this DC can be rock steady and noise-free even if the input AC is noisy and distorted. To make this happen is the job of the power supply circuitry. I am sure that we have all noted the ability of a power amp to play on for several seconds after the plug is pulled out of the wall. For the first second this most drastic AC power disturbance usually has zero audible effect.

Now, about flying saucers...

It's possible that sonic improvements via cryoing cables and wires are not the result of lowering electrical resistance of the wire. For example, sonic advantages to cryoing CDs and vinyl records are not a function of electrical resistance, at least in the conventional way of looking at it. Hard to say what the real mechanism is for anything cryoed as no way to get in there and measure things, or even to know what to measure. Even if resistance is (measured) a bit lower after cryoing doesn't necessarily mean that lower resistance is the reason the treatment is effective as other factors are undoubtedly involved (e.g., CDs and vinyl). Unfortunately these "other factors" are very undocumented for audio applications. Even the pro cryo labs, for the most part, don't offer any real explanation, altho they've been treating audio cables, CDs and components for almost ten years.

"Many years ago I learned that when the Jehovah’s Witnesses pay a call, it's a complete waste of time to argue with them. Who knows...in the end they might turn out to be correct, but in the meanwhile, I'll take a pass. So too with Cryo."

A very appropriate comparison, I think. There are elements of audiophiledom that are very much like religious fundamentalists and nutritional supplement adherents: the need to believe trumps all reason. Mushy thinking prevails.

Eldee: I regret if there are any Jehovah's Witnesses out there reading along, but I was LOL at that analogy! Too true...I once did the same thing (invite them in) when I was just a teenager. A husband and wife I believe - got them something to drink and we all made ourselves comfortable in the living room. I guess they gamely tried keeping it up for about 10 minutes before realizing that they *really did* have a sincere atheist on their hands and it was going to be easier pickings elsewhere. I remember feeling slightly bummed at the time that they so readily gave up on saving my soul, but the whole exercise in retrospect seems a little gratuitous and unkind of me (then again, they *did* ask for it)...Can't accuse Hdm of being OK with seeing me burn in audio hell though!

Geoffkait: There are actually people out there cryogenically freezing vinyl records? (Don't think I'd do that to my valuable vinyl...) What's next, freezing the little wooden disks? Anyway, if I owned a cryo lab, I wouldn't be offering any explanations either. Around 10 years ago I drove a beer truck for a while, back when 'ice-brewed' beer was the latest industry fad. I remember the owner of the distributorship telling us salesman that he had consulted with master brewers at the breweries and been told that in reality, there was nothing behind the hype: the beer was the same as it would have been otherwise given the same recipe, with the sole exception that if you lowered the temperature enough to cause water to precipitate out of solution and then removed some of those ice crystals before allowing them to dissolve back out again into the brewing beer, you would slightly raise the alcohol concentration by lowering the water content. Big deal. Apparently the brewers didn't want this to be public knowledge because, among other reasons, they didn't want to be seen as promoting higher alcohol content of beers. Did that fact stop multimillion-$ ad campaigns from launching the biggest beer craze since light beers? Ha! (It didn't prove to have exactly the same legs though.) What could it be about the idea of freezing stuff that seems to give people such a kick?...

Zaikesman - The problem with the ice-brewed beer analogy is that the ice brewed beer was heavily promoted in the industry; this is not the case (no pun) for cryoing audio gear. I'm pretty sure cryogenic treatment of cables, records, CDs etc. will never become a fad. Interesting that you accepted on face value the distributor's story (as told by the salesman, who heard it from the "master brewers)." I can't help wondering if anyone drew a conclusion regarding ice-brewed beer based on experience? No need to answer, rhetorical Q...