Cryogenic Tempering

Albert: Ah, the 1911. 90 years old and still going strong. I also have a custom model which I love shooting but I hate carrying in this Florida heat, so it mostly stays in the safe. I'm moving to New Hampshire in a year of two so I can probably cryo the entire gun by leaving it outside on a winter's night. ;>) Don

Has anyone performed this process on tubes? If so, what was the result? I ask the question because an associate has told me he has sent out about 50 NOS Telefunken, Mullard and Amperex 12ax7's for cryo. I personally thought the risk was too great.

The cryo process for tubes has been experimented with to a great extent by Bruce Wenger of BWS Consulting. He has a web site, http://www.bws-tube.com/

If the information about cryo treatment is not listed at the site, you can ask via e-mail. Bruce does modifications, can repair older gear and is an excellent source for many of the tubes we audiophiles are looking for. He is very sensitive to the sound of things, not just an engineering viewpoint. In other words you can talk about the sound of tubes with him much like you can with Andy Bauwman at Vintage. Hope this helps.

Regarding last posts about cryo process for tubes, I suggest you visit http://www.tubeworld.com/cryovac.html, where you can find an interesting list of tubes treated this way: there is also stated that these tubes sound extraordinarily well! Hope this helps.

Thanks Caesar: I had run across this site a while back, but could not remember the name of it. Has anyone tried the dry ice method, at home, on tubes with any success?