Cryo ribbon material

[Audiophilenoob]

I just received my cryo treated 4.3 micron foil back from moray james for testing...

I took one of the 4.3's out of my LCY clones... and kept it int he other... set up a switch and let the tunes go

firstly I didn't notice much difference... however after listening to the cryo one for a minute or so I switched and immediately noticed that the voices were more muffled, and slightly more imprecise

I thought I was crazy cause the foil felt the EXACT same... so I did it with another song... rock this time... same thing... the highs also were more extended this time... with the same open sound and more precise quality

I'm really surprised it did anything needless to say... I was quite skeptical to begin with so to say I'm surprised is a very accurate statement

[moray james]

Matthew: what can I say but cool really does rule! I have found with cryo work like this that the more skeptical a person is the bigger the shock when they experience first hand. What you heard happens to just about every thing you cryo treat. Just stop and think about that. It's a real mind messer. I would hazard a guess that your cryo treated ribbons will last longer than non treated ribbons as thier stretch characteristics will be improved as well as reduced resonances within the ribbon. I am glad that you did the experiment. Curious to know if a thicker cryo treated ribbon sounds better than a thinner non treated ribbon.
If you are a tube guy???? Do them tubes. Best regards Moray James.

[Audiophilenoob]

Originally posted by moray james
Matthew: what can I say but cool really does rule! I have found with cryo work like this that the more skeptical a person is the bigger the shock when they experience first hand. What you heard happens to just about every thing you cryo treat. Just stop and think about that. It's a real mind messer. I would hazard a guess that your cryo treated ribbons will last longer than non treated ribbons as thier stretch characteristics will be improved as well as reduced resonances within the ribbon. I am glad that you did the experiment. Curious to know if a thicker cryo treated ribbon sounds better than a thinner non treated ribbon.
If you are a tube guy???? Do them tubes. Best regards Moray James.

I never could get the 5.8 to work right in this.... so I'm just using the 4.3....

I'm not a tube guy no.... however I agree with you here... I'm just amazed by what I heard... just didn't expect a difference but there was what I consider a quite significant one

[Audiophilenoob]

ribbon interest seems to have greatly died off here

[pinkmouse]

This time of year is always quiet. Must be to do with summer or something, here in the northern hemisphere where most of our members live.

[Audiophilenoob]

Originally posted by pinkmouse
This time of year is always quiet. Must be to do with summer or something, here in the northern hemisphere where most of our members live.

perhaps

[LineSource]

Audiophilenoob,

Are you corrugating your ribbons? I did not notice corrugtions in your early pictures. Corrugation can have a large effect on the sound and perhaps also explain some of the sonic differences between ribbon foils.

The forming of a ribbon is like Grandma's secret family recipe. You need to experiment until the sound is to your taste.

[Audiophilenoob]

Originally posted by LineSource
Audiophilenoob,

Are you corrugating your ribbons? I did not notice corrugtions in your early pictures. Corrugation can have a large effect on the sound and perhaps also explain some of the sonic differences between ribbon foils.

The forming of a ribbon is like Grandma's secret family recipe. You need to experiment until the sound is to your taste.

corrugations is something I'm unable to fully accomplish with this very thin foil...

HOWEVER... I found a way to corrogate them quite well for my purposes .... nto a full corrugation mind you, but basically I hand roll the gears over it vs. through the annealing tool I made which cuts them

the sonic difference between the uncorogated and corrogated is minimal at best... in fact I can't hear it... so I didn't bother corrogating the cryo's

the gap is actually quite uniform from my sims... with only a 0.01T difference between the poles and the center of the gap... I'm unsure if this is audible... but the fully corrogated foil, 5.8 micron, that I ran through the annealer at one point was vastly inferior to the sound of the 4.3 uncorrogated... when I finally fixed the resonances with this foil it sounded quite bad on side by side tests...

they sound superior to the LCY's that's all I know.... and really all I care about at this point...

if I can come up with a way to properly anneal 4.3 foil I might try it... but given the 5.8 tests and the mostly annealing I did with hands and gears... I would say the sounds are inaudible... at least to me and my side by side tests

unfortunately audio is a world of compromise... but sadly this is the only compromise I made on the system... I just can't come up with a gear system that won't cut the ribbon...

strangely I have actually placed the uncorrogated cyro'd foil in both ribbons and they sound identical... so I'm unsure why corrogations would create a more uniform sound between ribbons

around a 1/8 mm gap between the poles and the foil...

any suggestions on annealing such thin foil would be great... I really can't think of anything though

also with the corrogated 5.8 micron.. to mount it with my clips I was unable to make it taunt enough for play without nearly flattening all the corrogations... you could still see them, but they weren't as raised as before
it is too "loose" and will sound terrible if it's not fairly taunt... this from my experience destroys the annealing.... at least most of the functionality

both the 4.3 foil I tried with corrogations and 5.8 foil with corrogations did NOT sound superior to withoiut corrogations... the 5.8 sounded worse... simply due to my tastes it seems...

[Audiophilenoob]

because linesource made me paranoid

I spent around 2 hrs today figured out a way to anneal the 4.3... and I finally did it

by sanding the edges of my plastic gears it worked... finally...

the sound... i well the same... but at least my mind is at ease now... they just sound fantastic and I couldn't be happier

[planet10]

Originally posted by moray james
what can I say but cool really does rule! I have found with cryo work like this that the more skeptical a person is the bigger the shock when they experience first hand

Moray,

Have you got your own cyro facility or are you taking it over to Bill's to get done? (i have a tray of tubes awaiting processing)

dave