Cryogenic treatment of highly stressed racing gearbox components and driveshafts has been relatively common for a few years.
Rapid chilling followed by extremely slow warming as I recall.
It has a surface hardening effect.
It's a real effect. Any benefit to audio is dubious.
http://www.mtce.com.au/coldinfo.htm
It does make permanent changes to the metal's structure in the right conditions.
While cold you can shatter a spanner by throwing it at the floor.
Rapid chilling followed by extremely slow warming as I recall.
It has a surface hardening effect.
It's a real effect. Any benefit to audio is dubious.
http://www.mtce.com.au/coldinfo.htm
It does make permanent changes to the metal's structure in the right conditions.
While cold you can shatter a spanner by throwing it at the floor.
I can understand how cryo treatment extends the cooling phase of a heat treated steel and has a structural and practical effect, but a lot of wild claims have been made for cryo treatment of all sorts of stuff where it shouldn't matter a bit. The purest copper in the world will still oxidize like... well, copper. It does help to highly polish metals to slow the process. I know they make high power laser mirrors by diamond turning copper to an extreme finish, but I don't know if they have to overcoat them to prevent oxidation. That's the ticket- diamond turned RCA plugs. IMO if you want to accomplish something, ditch the stupid RCA plugs and go to a real connector like a BNC, N-type, or even the old hermaphrodite General Radio connectors. Finally, no more sex problems!
(no, not many people will have a clue what I'm talking about)
(no, not many people will have a clue what I'm talking about)
Conrad Hoffman said:
Actually that's what you're buying if you're buying regular ETP copper (CDA alloy 110) which is what the vast majority of copper wire is made from. ETP copper is produced in an atmosphere where the oxygen level is precisely controlled. The intentional addition of oxygen is used to scavenge impurities and take them out of solution which results in copper with slightly higher conductivity than otherwise.
Oxygen free copper (CDA alloy 101) is produced in an oxygen free environment. The reason for this is that if you heat oxygenated copper in a reducing atmosphere like hydrogen, it will become brittle (I assume the hydrogen combines with the oxygen forming steam).
So anyway, when you buy regular old ETP copper, you're buying "oxygen bearing copper."
se
I fully agree with you Conrad, are you a radio comms technician?
BNCs are dirt cheap and also impedance contigious (not that it matters with audio) RCA's are an extremely flawed design to begin with.
Not much beats a properly crimped N or BNC.
75 ohm coax makes incredibly good interconnects. I've written about that elsewhere.
BNCs are dirt cheap and also impedance contigious (not that it matters with audio) RCA's are an extremely flawed design to begin with.
Not much beats a properly crimped N or BNC.
75 ohm coax makes incredibly good interconnects. I've written about that elsewhere.
Hmmm... so audiophiles want the less conductive copper but then don't think it's good enough, so they buy silver. My head hurts. Not a radio guy, but I grew up with the stuff 'cause my dad's a ham, and I've built quite a few RF circuits. Actually, I'm just a grumpy OF with a bent towards measurements and scientific instrument design.
I've used BNC. They're great. Just non-standard, and too bad for that. The downside is that they're a major pain to attach to cable unless you've got the expensive tooling (I don't).
These days, there's those little gold plugs that you see on wireless router antennas (I forget their code) which look like the trick. If I ever go back to non-standard, that's what I'll use.
These days, there's those little gold plugs that you see on wireless router antennas (I forget their code) which look like the trick. If I ever go back to non-standard, that's what I'll use.
No disadvantage other than non-standard (and Steve's desire to not use coaxial wire for interconnects), and lots of advantages, mostly contact integrity and reliability. You need the correct impedance wire if you're carrying very high frequency signals (e.g., digital datastreams or RF), but for analog audio, there's no real need.
IIRC, the BNCs are available in 75 and 52 ohm versions.
IIRC, the BNCs are available in 75 and 52 ohm versions.
If you buy the nut-in-the-back screw down clamp type BNCs, you don't need any special tooling at all, and they're available for all different sizes of coax. You do have to read the instructions and trim the wire to the right length. I used to work for a place that made their own BNC cables for customers. TTBOMK, they built them wrong for 25 years because nobody ever studied the assembly diagrams.
A couple years ago I got tired of never having the right crimp tool for coax stuff. At a hamfest I bought an imported crimp tool that came with interchangeable heads for just about every circular and hex crimp imaginable. The thing wasn't cheap, about $135. Works great. In the last couple years do you think I've had occasion to crimp more than about 2 connectors? If I sold it, a dump truck would immediately pull into my driveway and deposit several tons of crimp type connectors, so I'm keeping it for insurance.
Hey, everybody loves Teflon. Well, guess what you can buy almost every RF connector with? If you know what you're looking for, you can even get some with polystyrene. Silver is popular- just order your RF connectors with silver plating. Want cool looking miniature gold connectors? Look at the SMA and similar families. Screw on or shove on. Still cheaper than special audiophile grade RCA jobs. Want a very high quality brand that's a little cheaper? Look at Kings (assuming they haven't been bought up by somebody). I can't believe more people aren't using these.
A couple years ago I got tired of never having the right crimp tool for coax stuff. At a hamfest I bought an imported crimp tool that came with interchangeable heads for just about every circular and hex crimp imaginable. The thing wasn't cheap, about $135. Works great. In the last couple years do you think I've had occasion to crimp more than about 2 connectors? If I sold it, a dump truck would immediately pull into my driveway and deposit several tons of crimp type connectors, so I'm keeping it for insurance.
Hey, everybody loves Teflon. Well, guess what you can buy almost every RF connector with? If you know what you're looking for, you can even get some with polystyrene. Silver is popular- just order your RF connectors with silver plating. Want cool looking miniature gold connectors? Look at the SMA and similar families. Screw on or shove on. Still cheaper than special audiophile grade RCA jobs. Want a very high quality brand that's a little cheaper? Look at Kings (assuming they haven't been bought up by somebody). I can't believe more people aren't using these.
Actually, the dimensions of the connector itself are slightly different, and it's supposed to maintain the 52 or 75 ohms impedance characteristic *in the frequency region it was designed for*. With the right RF analyzer (TDR?) you can actually see reflections where a step impedance change occurs, usually at a connection. For audio, none of this is relevant.
The difference between 75 ohm and 50 ohm BNC, TNC and N type is the thickness of the centre pin.
75 ohm gear has a thinner innner compared to the diameter of the screen. Usually the centre pin is made with a sharper point for 75 ohm than 50 ohm. if you have a 75 ohm plug in a 50 ohm socket it usually still works.
The step change is only a problem above about 300MHz and even then only on particularly sensitive equipment. Things start getting really freaky with RF, we actually use segments of 75 ohm cable of certain lengths to make splitters in 50 ohm transmission lines. For audio interconnects 75 ohm cable is technically better than 50. the capacitance is lower for a given length.
If you're going to go this way use 75 ohm cable and BNC connectors, everything is cheaper because it is more common, the tiny little connectors from wireless LAN gear has expensive tooling and is about 10 times the cost. Also too small to work with easily.
Moderator: Perhaps we should drag the interconnect discussion off the fuse thread.
75 ohm gear has a thinner innner compared to the diameter of the screen. Usually the centre pin is made with a sharper point for 75 ohm than 50 ohm. if you have a 75 ohm plug in a 50 ohm socket it usually still works.
The step change is only a problem above about 300MHz and even then only on particularly sensitive equipment. Things start getting really freaky with RF, we actually use segments of 75 ohm cable of certain lengths to make splitters in 50 ohm transmission lines. For audio interconnects 75 ohm cable is technically better than 50. the capacitance is lower for a given length.
If you're going to go this way use 75 ohm cable and BNC connectors, everything is cheaper because it is more common, the tiny little connectors from wireless LAN gear has expensive tooling and is about 10 times the cost. Also too small to work with easily.
Moderator: Perhaps we should drag the interconnect discussion off the fuse thread.
The real crime is that RCA became the defacto standard for component video, an area where impedance does matter. BNC would be far better.
As for worrying about the conductivity of the copper - the output impedance of the source is going to be 1000 times higher than the resistance of the cable.
And phools who buy gold plated, cryo chilled whatever, thinking this will greatly improve their gear, deserve to lose their cash.
As for worrying about the conductivity of the copper - the output impedance of the source is going to be 1000 times higher than the resistance of the cable.
And phools who buy gold plated, cryo chilled whatever, thinking this will greatly improve their gear, deserve to lose their cash.
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