I can find no research paper or formal test report on your website. Part of it may be because the coding on the website is giving my browser problems. Could you please link directly to the evidence you have that cryogenic treating impacts the playback of digital media?
I’d say that 30 people all identifying something is hard data. I’d say that manufacturers of stereo gear paying to have the process done is hard data. Where is your data that refutes this? All you are giving me is theory and rather tenuous theory at that.
I have already given you the link to the Chicago Audio Society who hosted the gathering where this was done.
Yes, CD’s are digital. But you are using an polycarbonate plastic with a very thin coating of aluminum to create your recording surface. The disc spins between 200 and 500 RPM, depending where it is on the disc. A laser beam trys to read “bumps” on the disc. The bumps are 125 nanometers high. The aluminum coating is VERY thin and sputtered on to the disc. Honewell found in research on high priced thin film magnetic memories that the sputtered coatings often contained holes. When they cryo treated the chips the holes were gone. They theorized that the atoms were being moved about by the cold. This is very basic metallurgical crystal theory.
CD’s have similar problems which are accentuated by the fact that they are cheap and that they spin. They do not spin perfectly. They vibrate as they spin. The laser is trying read bumps while all this is going on. This problem can be solved, as during the recording the Cross Interleaved Reed Solomon Code (CIRC) is added, which is an error correction system that automatically inserts any lost or damaged information by making a number of mathematical calculations. Without this error correction system optical disc players would not have existed, as even the slightest vibration would cause sound and image distortions. Note that the correction is a mathmatical calculation.
The basic fact is that the data may be digital, but the readout is not totally digital. Anything that stabylizes the disc, closes the holes in the aluminum coating and dampens vibration will help the sound quality by reducing the need for the CIRC. Cryogenics as proven to do all three things.
I do not mind skepticism, but please do some research before you make a statment that implies that someone is not telling the truth. Ask questions and you may learn something or generate good conversations and discussions that may further everbody’s knowledge.
First off, you posted above “The test is described on my web site.” So I went to your profile and followed the link to your website, and there was nothing to be found. Now you’re saying it wasn’t really on your website, it’s on the Chicago Audio Society site, who, quite frankly, seem to have taken a lesson in web design from Clown Pants University. In short, I’m not finding the research, and if you jerk me around once more I’m going to become cross.
Oh! I have a question. Why did you refuse to provide a simple link, when it surely was such an insignificant effort?
BTW, you know what I get when I enter “compact disc” into “Search site” on your Chicago Audio Society link? I get this horseshit.
Indeed. :dubious:
Sorry, but the information that I can find would suggest that you do not recall what happened at the presentation you gave to the Chicago Audio Society correctly. It seems you gave a presentation to them on 20 January 2002.
According to the report in the February 2002 Newsletter:
Which in a two instance test is a null result.
Either you have done other tests with Chicago Audio which aren’t searchable on their website, or your memory fails you or you are a liar, sir.
Princhester:
In the real world when 30 or so people with no bias prefer x over y, and nobody prefers y, x is the most popular. Show me your research that even implies that there is no change to a CD. You seem to try to demand my research yet offer none of your own.
Una
The following was copied from my website.
"People in the business of building custom stereo equipment regularly send us components to be treated. When this started, we felt that this must be some sort of very subtle effect, that would only be heard by “expert” listeners, so we more or less treated their parts and didn’t push things. Our conversations with these customers left us skeptical that the “ordinary person” would be able to discern a difference. Then something happened to change our mind.
VISIT TO CHICAGO AUDIO SOCIETY WAKES UP CTP PRESIDENT RICK DIEKMAN.
CTP President Rick Diekman was invited to a meeting of the Chicago Audio Society (www.chicagoaudio.org) to listen to the difference between treated and untreated components. Its not that Rick doesn’t like good music, he really does. But he figured that after years of being around noisy industrial environments, racing engines, and aircraft engines that the subtle changes he was anticipating would be lost on him. Was he surprised!
The society put together a medium priced system and played several selections on it. They then changed one component and played the same selections. There was an audience of around thirty people and the audience unanimously decided the second playing was far superior to the first. It was then revealed that the second playing used a cryogenically treated component. This was done over and over with different components being substituted. In every case but one there was a unanimous decision as to which component sounded better and in every case it turned out to be the cryogenically treated component. In one case, one person voted for what turned out to be the non treated component.
The point is this. The treated components were virtually universally accepted as being superior in sound reproduction. Even Rick was able to tell the difference. As one person put it, this was a very inexpensive way to upgrade a system. "
Get into the real world. I’ve got more to do than design and conduct rigorous research programs and write research papers on such a tiny part of the market. I’ve described an effect that cryogenics has. You guys have come up with nothing that shows that what I say is wrong except that I do not meet your test standards and you don’t think that I am right. SHOW ME RESEARCH THAT SAYS I AM WRONG. YOU HAVE SHOWN ME NO TEST, WHICH IS A NULL RESULT. All the insulting things you can say about the design of someone else’s website have no bearing on your argument. Their web site and my web site are designed to serve our purposes, not yours.
I’ll tell you guys what. Go out and buy a dozen sets of 2 CD’s. Send one of each set to me still in their cellophane wrap. I will treat them. Get 30 people together with a reasonable stereo. Play the CD’s for them and let them decide if there is a difference. Otherwise go play your little games somewhere else.
F. J. Diekman
Are you familiar with the concept of burden of proof?
Unfortunately, the burden of proof is not “I make a claim, you disprove it”, it’s “I make a claim, and here’s my proof.” That is the scientific method I was taught in Engineering School and which I teach to my students.
The SDMB Members in general follow that same process - the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. You are making a claim, so the burden of proof is on yourself. Your failure to do so does not mean your claim is false, nor incorrect, nor unreasonable, but it does mean that it cannot be accepted prima facie. Do you understand what I’m saying here? There is a difference between “you’re full of shit” and “you make a bold claim, we’d like to see some hard proof.” We are saying the latter.
I’m not going to point-by-point what you posted, because it’s not scientific, and it does not prove anything.
You might consider who you might be talking to here. A decent number of posters on this message board are scientists, engineers, research specialists, instructors, etc. who are in the real world.
What’s so onerous? Are you saying that to get a message out proving that treated CDs are improved in sound quality isn’t worth a simple double-blind test and a bit of writing and literature review? Why do you think it would be so difficult to do?
Speaking of which, can you explain the null result from the Chicago Audio Society’s Feb. 2002 newsletter?
If your purpose is to spread information, then it does not serve it. If your purpose is not to spread information, then why are you here?
Think about what we’re saying. Those of us in the “real world” of research and science know that differences in perception, accidental and purposeful bias, experimental error, random noise, mistakes, and other factors can complicate experiments and tests and make things not be what they seem. All good scientists have had experiments fail massively, and go down wrong paths as a result. That’s part of the scientific process - iteration towards the truth by a rigorous, methodical, logical method.
We (and I think I speak for everyone) have no bias against cryo-cooling CDs. Since I haven’t bought a CD in years and thanks to legal MP3 downloads I never will again, on one level I don’t even care. However, we would like to see if your process works just from the pure “coolness” of the concept, pun intended. I for one would like to see it work because it may say a lot about computer data disc reliability. But we cannot and will not abandon the values and principles of the scientific method of research to get an answer we may want.
In the real world, when 30 or so people with no bias prefer x over y in one iteration of a test, and then the opposite in the next iteration, that means neither is more popular. Which suggests no appreciable difference between the CD’s. It doesn’t mean there is no difference, but it does imply that.
The fact that you simply reported on one iteration of the test without mentioning the other, and maintained that position even after it had been pointed out that you were reporting only half the story, is alarming. It suggests you just don’t have any understanding at all of statistics or rigorous testing, or that you are so blinded by your commercial or personal goals that you are unable to see any test result that doesn’t suit you, or you are deliberately lying.
The suggestion that I should come up with some sort of test result to disprove something when your own test (taken as a whole and without cherry picking only those results that suit you) has already disproven your own proposition is frankly inane.
Either way, I’ve formed a view about your credibility and qualifications and intend to apply it to every single claim made in your post #13 until you come up with cites to support them.
I and others have made the observation that CD’s respond to cryogenic processing. Somewhere along the line you people decided you needed rigorous proof. After you insultingly decided that I was a liar, I came up with a challenge. I’ll process the CD’s and you can put whatever statistical testing you deem necessary so that you have the test you think you want. Let’s face the truth. I could have published a technical paper on this subject with peer review and general acclaim from the angels, and you would have said I was somehow faking things or that I failed to account for the swallows flying by with coconuts. You refused the challenge. I will use your tactic and decide that you have no credibility in your claim that you want information. You just delight in trying to show how smart you are. The result is you show how ill mannered and dull you are.
I am an engineer and a metallurgist. I understand statistical methods. I was also taught when to use them. CD’s improvement is not important enough to take up a lot of my time. Thirty stereo experts agreeing is enough for me.
I have challenged you. You have failed to pick up the challenge. Therefore you fear being shown to be in the wrong. You fear that your vaunted statistical analysis will show that I am right and there is a change.
You are the Dr. Langley’s of the Smithsonian spending huge amounts of resources and the time of a full time staff on the design and building of machines to fly while two practical brothers spending about $3000 total (including travel) and some spare time while operating a business made the first aircraft to achieve controlled flight. Langley was learned but he failed miserably.
I thought that you would be interested that the two professional societies have tested and proclaimed a process valid. That is not your purpose at all.
I have real work to. I do not have any more time for this ridiculous charade.
“Could haves” cut no ice. Do it.
I’m not a metallurgist but (correct me if I’m wrong, Una) I think that if you could produce a good paper that showed the sort of thing you are talking about here it would be of great interest to many people. A lot of it is quite remarkable, if it’s true.
I’m not interested in your proposed test because there isn’t any evidence that your process improves CD’s. If I put time into every damn thing someone asserted without evidence I’d spend my whole life testing for fairies and unicorns. Let alone something that you’ve already found achieves a null result in a two iteration test.
OK Warbird I tell you what. I have a friend that owns a custom stereo system installation business (He has done AV setups that cost in excess of 100K)
His home stereo is very close to beyond belief. If there are any differences to be heard on a disc that has undergone cryogenic processing it will show up on his system.
In the interest of fighting ignorance I propose the following test.
I will buy and ship you 2 brand new unopened identical commercial CDs.
You take them out of the package, and mark them with a sharpie A and B (on the label side please)
You subject one of them to your cryogenic process. Put them both back into the original packages, and you mail them back to me.
You will not tell me which disc is which. What you will do is email a third person (someone from this board) which disc is which. The holder of the key will not inform me of which disc is which.
My buddy and I will throw a listening party.
I will report the results here, and the holder of the key as to which disc is which will post the answer as to which is which.
While it is not a peer reviewed paper, I know this would satisfy me and probably several others in this thread.
So what do you say?
I find it funny that Warbird’s made statements folks are overlooking, and I’ve provided cites for other applications, but you folks are so damn wrapped up in Cryo Treating CD’s because…well, I dunno, because it’s something you feel you’re qualified to judge. You’ve found one aspect in Warbird’s claims that you can pick away at, so it all must be suspect. You find the only positive claims are from people that are obviously biased which means it can’t be correct.
It’s an unfortunate internet behavior. Lots of armchair quarterbacking and lots of logical fallacies.
(And if I wanted to level the same scrutiny to your proposal Rick I could easily dismiss it as not having enough tests to provide a statistical conclusion.)
Another thing to notice Warbird is that there’s a lot of ‘flyby commentary’ going on here. Folks drop in, claim skepticism on the CD front, then never return.
Thanks Rick.
Can I make some suggestions?
The number of results you produce here are going to be too low to be statistically useful. Frankly if the test comes back with a non-null result in either direction it could very easily be chance. Could the numbers be ramped up?
Secondly, could you get a third person to operate the player while neither you nor your buddy can see what they are doing? Then they can do a random pattern, not just alternating A and B but even putting on A twice in a row (for example). In this way, not only will you establish whether A is better than B, but also you may show that the differences you are hearing are subjective (if for example it turns out that you perceive A and A to be different from one another on successive listens).
Thirdly, could you and your buddy listen separately? One of the problems with mass tests is that people tend to re-inforce one another’s opinions?
Fourthly, could you send the CD’s to an intermediary who would then send only one or some to Warbird so that there can be no suggestion of any tampering with the non-treated CD?
Unintentionally Blank your cites are not very convincing. Some (the ones that make strong claims) are to commercial magazines. Such magazines have heavy influence from advertisers. The articles read like re-written press releases. There is no description of objective scientific testing of any claims made. There are no references to supporting papers.
You also provide cites to two scientific papers. One found “tensile behavior is marginally reduced after cryogenic treatment” in the circumstances they tested which falls well short of providing support for the near-miraculous claims for cryo treatment made in this thread. The other is about cooling of tools while machining and is unrelated to cryo treatment of parts to permanently change their metallurgical characteristics (did you even read it?).
I pick on Warbird’s statement about CD’s for two reasons. One, it is inherently immensely implausible. Two, it is one of the few of his claims that I can explore over the internet to find out some background and lo and behold we find that he is (let’s be kind) selectively remembering.
This doesn’t mean all his other claims aren’t golden. But why would I believe them?
I think that this is an interesting statement since it suggests that cryogenic freezing is inducing a thermodynamic irreversible state. That means that there are other ways to acheive the same state.
This page is increasingly convincing me that it’s a whole lot of nothing. Nobody is linking to any reputible research. At least one claim is extremely unlikely. Certaily the metallurgist can post a phase diagram of aluminum so we can see if crygenic treatment is even plausible on it. Wikipedia only lists one crystal structure. If there is only one crystal structure for aluminum, then cryogenic treating can’t do anything to it at all.
If you read Cecil’s column on this, you’ll note he refers to “My assistant Una contacted…” - that’s me. I helped look up items for the column because I was originally a materials scientist in graduate school. I believe that cryogenic treatment works for some applications, especially in the area of wear resistance (I wanted Cecil to talk a lot more on that, but he told me it would bore people to tears, so there we go). I don’t feel the need to validate claims regarding hardness because there is precedent for it. I don’t feel the need to validate auto parts improvements because there is an extension of a principle at work. That doesn’t mean I accept it out of hand, but that it doesn’t immediately set off alarm bells.
But folks have been proposing all sorts of ways that CDs can magically be made to sound better since I was in high school in 1983. Remember “greening” CDs? Rubber balance rings? Micropolishing? Companies that used to promise to “rebalance” your CDs? Special labels on the back to reflect or absorb stray, scattered laser light? AFAIK they all were frauds.
Add to this the fact that hi-fi equipment is a field where you get all sorts of strange claims of how monster cables and $20,000 vacuum tube amps can somehow transform music, and, well, yes the claim sets off alarm bells.
I believe that cryogenic treatment improves the properties of some items. I can give the benefit of the doubt to others, although I have no proof. I have seen no evidence to accept the CD claim, and the proponent of it in this thread has not furthered their cause.
I can do, and would be happy to do all of those things.
Thank you for the clarification, Una. My Google Research is reflecting more on Google filling with spam than anything else. While I have found a couple of links that are to .edu research, they’re typically by students that have moved on and the links no longer go to the research. Even archive.org brought no joy.
The large percentage of links on ‘cryogenic metallurgy’ go to sites that DO make it sound like snake oil (these pages, by different companies, are identical: http://www.evansperformance.com/CRYOFAQ.html FAQ, the first two pages on Google are spamlinks concerning Professional Cryogenic Metallurgy & Coatings, LLC in Cumming, GA
)
There ARE a number of peer reviewed papers (IEEE Xplore Login and the above linked http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TXJ-4KGG5Y1-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9378b2d071e0f420e1b41b3625555f6c) discussing the effects of cryo treatment on the properties of materials, but they cost real money to get, and unless the SD takes a collection, I’m not paying.
The point is, Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence. The process claims to improve wear (abrasion) in cutting and friction applications, it claims to improve dimensional stability in heat-cycled materials, it claims to relieve internal stresses in manufacture, it does NOT claim to improve the tensile strength of the parts in question. To a lay person, it isn’t any more black magic than quenching metal in water vs. quenching it in oil. If you stand back from the normal conventions of what is ‘hot’ and what is ‘cold’, all cryo treating is doing is expanding the range of temperature treatment what is already performed in the tempering of metal. It’s not like we’re ‘realigning it’s aura, dude’.
There’s an interesting history here: http://www.metal-wear.com/History%20of%20Cryogenic%20Processing.html and yeah, there’s some chest thumping going on, but if you were in business, I dunno, coating unicorn horns, wouldn’t you also mention how you’d been doing it longer than anyone else in the business?
It’s healthy to have a well formed sence of skepticism on the Internet…but there’s evidence that this is not just snake oil, and there are plenty of people willing to commit other’s funding and time for their satisfaction. If you don’t believe it’s a real phenomenon, there’s really not a lot I can do from my side of the keyboard to convince you.
And I’m not willing to write off, wholesale, something that sounds a little odd on the surface (helping CD playback) if there could be a rational reason for it working (reduction in psycho acoustic error correction) as it’s just one oddball aspect in the overall discussion.
Anybody besides me ever read Lewis Carroll’s Photography Extraordinary? (That’s the short story, not the brief poem extracted from it without context.)
See, I’m not a metallurgist. I can’t decide between someone claiming that cryo treatment weakens a metal and someone who claims that it strengthens it. I do know a little something about CDs, and on the face of it, a claim that exposing a CD to super cold temperatures will result is better sound doesn’t make sense. Analogies are always tricky, but consider:
A: This pill will help you lose weight!
B: Huh! That’s very interesting, if true. I wonder if this will achieve wider exposure in the coming months.
A: And when you take it, your car’s clearcoat is protected against scratches!
B: Buh-wah? This claim is extraordinary, and calls all your claims into question
I’ll take two bottles then. 