Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: neilep on 15/06/2022 14:23:52
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Dearest Coldologists,
As a sheepy I luff my music, in fact I absolutely luff it very muchly. Sad to say but I'm a bit geeky when it comes to Hi Fi components and my interconnects and loudspeaker cables are Deep Cryogenically treated. Now I recall doing blind tests and there was a definite improvement in dynamic and control when using these cables.
Can ewe tell me what the science is and why treating audio cables cryogenically makes such an improvement ? would this method work for cables of any kind for any use ?
whajafink ?
Sheepy
High Five To Hi Fi Geeks
Why have a scallion when one can have a Leek ?
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Sounds improbable. Freezing a copper cable will either trap the existing imperfections or add more as the cable is stressed and destressed. Not sure how that could make anything sound better.
But I'm a bit of a philistine (I always listen to music in a real world with at least 1dB of background noise, like the sound of the dog breathing and blood moving in my ears) and an engineer (I built Class A amplifiers into the speaker cabinets and thus eliminated speaker leads altogether).
A fellow philistine and musician pointed out that composers "hear" their music in their heads. Problem was for thousands of years that real instruments take up real space, so an actual performance distributes the sound sources in 3 dimensions. Edison solved the problem by getting all the sound to come out of one hole, and for 100 years you could hear what Beethoven wanted you to hear. Then some idiot invented stereo and splattered the orchestra all over the stage again.
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A fellow philistine and musician pointed out that composers "hear" their music in their heads. Problem was for thousands of years that real instruments take up real space, so an actual performance distributes the sound sources in 3 dimensions. Edison solved the problem by getting all the sound to come out of one hole, and for 100 years you could hear what Beethoven wanted you to hear. Then some idiot invented stereo and splattered the orchestra all over the stage again.
For my money, two speaker mono is best. The sound fills the room without any sensation that it's coming out of a box in the corner like you get with single speaker mono, or alternating between two boxes with stereo.
But generally, I prefer Prof. Richard Wiseman's approach to connoisseurs.
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Cryogenically Treating Cables
Certain alloys become superconductors at cryogenic temperatures - resistance drops to zero.
- You could argue that this allows more of the signal to reach your speakers
- Only:
- Zero resistance only really applies to DC. Higher frequencies suffer from eddy currents
- Copper metal does not become a superconductor
- You have to get copper oxide compounds down to around 35K before they become superconducting. But your HiFi and speakers operate at around room temperature, and these compounds are very poor conductors at room temperature.
It's more effective to just turn up the volume by 1dB to get the same sound coming out of your speakers.
My conclusion: It is a marketing ploy to distinguish your brand, and get more money out of HiFi enthusiasts
- It won't work on the younger end of the demographic, as they use wireless earbuds...
Correction, thanks to BC. See: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Solids/scond.html
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The "benefit" occurs in the seller's bank balance and not in the purchaser's audio experience.
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You have to get copper down to 35K before it becomes superconducting
I'm fairly sure that copper doesn't superconduct even at much lower temperatures than that.
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My guess would be the reason is oxygen in the cable, that was the big thing some years ago, oxygen destroys sound quality. But then again like all products the new one is so much better than the old one that you where told was brilliant anyway, which means the present one is also rubbish, and probably the one in future is also useless, either that or there is no discernable difference.
It amazes me that all of these things for stereos are marketed as a must have, yet the cables are not shielded, the connections are mechanical. The first point of order would be to shield the cable, perhaps coax, and then weld the connections or solder them at least.