Freezing CDs?

I have tried it, and no it didnt work.

 

'Zanash' Quote: 'but I'm game to give it a go' 'I've not dismissed it out of hand and then again I'm quite happy to be proved wrong'

My feelings also.. though if your/my or any other feel that they hear an 'improved' difference.. so be it, of course, a general consensus would be good.

Tones Quote: 'because there's nothing to work'. 'End of story'.
Then to you "it can be", but if you step out into the world of others, it can't, as there are just as many that find a positive result as those that find negative..though from 'detailed' reviews there's a definitive lean to the positive/improved sound.

Take this 'for instance', from a Stereophile review.

Quote: I began by listening to my guitar and bass recording from the untreated disc. After switching to the frozen and painted disc, the difference was immediate and obvious. First, the guitar appeared to become louder, with more clarity and detail. Subtle sounds like finger noises and minute instrumental detail jumped forward. The sonic picture became more vivid and immediate. The acoustic bass took on a more rounded character and its musical contribution seemed enhanced. There was a greater degree of air and life around the instruments; they suddenly became more palpable.

then you read this...

Quote:The degree to which these characteristics were apparent varied considerably with the type of music. During our annual Stereophile writers' conference in early August, I had an opportunity to play treated and untreated discs for some of the visiting writers. Arnis Balgalvis correctly identified the treated disc in a blind A/B/A comparison when he visited my listening room. He immediately knew that presentation B was different, and his description of the difference was remarkably similar to my impressions.
I repeated the blind test for Peter Mitchell in JA's listening room; Peter also immediately identified the treated disc. In fact, within seconds of hearing the treated disc with the guitar and bass recording, he let out a loud exclamation of surprise. His impressions were consistent with the differences I had heard, which I related to him after the test and his description to me of the differences.

The above listening comparisons were made between an untreated disc and one that was both cryogenically frozen and painted black. Further listening of frozen-only discs and painted-only discs revealed that most of the sonic difference was the result of freezing.

http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/822/index1.html

If these findings were of an amp in a hifi mag review, they'd be flying of the shelves.. no ?

The CD is as of today out of our freezer and into the Cooler .. am using the recommended times given in barty's posts

 

Stereovile, purveyors of lies, deceit and total humbug to the gentry. Went downhill after founding editor Gordon Holt left and stayed down. Look up Holt's classic shredding of Peter Belt in the Stereovile archives and see what I mean.

http://www.stereophile.com/historical/110/index.html

It's hard to better Holt's brilliant summing up:

Despite heroic efforts to educate our population, the US (and, apparently, the UK) has been graduating scientific illiterates for more than 40 years. And where knowledge ends, superstition begins. Without any concepts of how scientific knowledge is gleaned from intuition, hypothesis, and meticulous investigation, or what it accepts today as truth, anything is possible. Without the anchor of science, we are free to drift from one idea to another, accepting or "keeping an open mind about" as many outrageous tenets as did the "superstitious natives" we used to scorn 50 years ago. (We still do, but it's unfashionable to admit it.) Many of our beliefs are based on nothing more than a very questionable personal conviction that, because something should be true, then it must be. (Traditional religion is the best example of this.) The notion that a belief should have at least some objective support is scorned as being "closed-minded," which has become a new epithet. In order to avoid that dread appellation, we are expected to pretend to be open to the possibility that today's flight of technofantasy may prove to be tomorrow's truth, no matter how unlikely. Well, I don't buy that.

I do not have a degree in physics, or EE, or even in metaphysics. But I will modestly assert that I have a conceptual grasp of the first two which exceeds that of many of the people who design the equipment we review in this magazine. It is this conceptual picture, more than anything else, which is defaced by Mr. Belt's views and the gadgets which they have spawned. In short, it is my firm belief that their beneficial effects, when such are observed, are not on the perceptual faculties of the listener, but on his suggestibility.

Alas, those days are gon and we have lunacy and superstition in their place. Nowadays, in general, if Stereovile says it, believe the opposite.

 

Absolutely tones..Very Fine, Mr holt as an individual is well entitled to his individual opinion, and long may such continue (without despotism please)
Out of the Belt gadgets mentioned in the Holt essay, i saw no mention of the Frozen CD experiment ?


to Quote Mr Holt : I attended one of the listening sessions at the Penta show, and was unable to hear any change as a result of the devices. I brought some of them home with me, and I am still damned if I can hear them doing anything at all. But then, I didn't expect to. And maybe that's the key to this whole phenomenon. EQ

I know nothing of Belts devices and so wouldn't form an opinion or be biased either way until sampled, seemingly Mr Holt (But then, I didn't expect to) had *made up* his mind beforehand.

I am unsure as to what scientifically solid fact is under attack from this (freezing CD) experiment ?

and to quote einstein

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."

 

NESPA PRO - fantastic improvement - nuked by light

Best tweak in years - and I don't care how many lampoons follow - this product is genius.

 

I was under the impression that the active area of a cd consists of raised bumps that are 125 nanometers higher than the surrounding area (lands). As the laser passes over this raised bump the beam is reflected into a receiver, when on a land the beam is not reflected and does not indicate.
Is it not a possibility that by freezing a cd down to -20 and then slowly bringing it back to room temperature the polycarbonate goes through a process where the layers are stabilized, reducing any non conformities in the 125 nanometer bumps and this possibly produces a disc with far fewer read errors ?
After all, it is universally accepted that by eliminating vibration from the transport and or disc is of benefit and produces better sound quality. If vibration in the transport can affect the read errors by changing the phase of the laser between bump and land, could the stabilizing of the disc by controlled cooling / warming not have a similar effect ?
Rather than just deciding it doesn't work, could someone not do some tests ?
I would have thought that a measurement of read errors on frozen and un frozen disc was not that hard to complete.

 

'granville' Many thanks for a most interesting post !


Cross Section of a CD

In the below link there is a Diagram (helpfully in motion)

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cd5.htm

that shows what has been explained 'by granville Quote': "As the laser passes over this raised bump the beam is reflected into a receiver, when on a land the beam is not reflected and does not indicate".

therefore granville, this being correct, i assume that when returning from land to bump (vice-versa).. the laser's movement off/outside of the pickup could possibly (after freezing treatment) be minimized or perhaps quickened in return to read due to, as you say... a stabilizing of the errors ?

Thanks

 

Were there such clear evidence available (error rate changes) you can be sure the tweaky lobby would have plastered it all over the place by now to support their claims.

Perhaps someone could perform the test suggested over on Hi-Fi Critic whereby two files are compared in a hex editor and we can check for differences, or rip the CD into a WAV editor then repeat the process with a frozen disc and compare the files for differences.

Someone who thinks that this mallarky is of any importance might like to amuse themselves for a couple of hours.

 

would then.. the test need check for change in speed/bit rate (bit length) and/or interference (light reflection) differences between the frozen CD and normal CD ? ? ?

RobH 'the malarky' ...since when is looking to improve/better..nonsense ?

 

thats the rub.......

the pursuit of excellence is not a priority for some in our hobby ...

they wish everyone to conform to the lowest common denominator...ie its impossible to improve the sound you have unless you buy a new box ....which imo is frankly ludicrous

This goes against my personal experience ... week two of owning a hifi back in '76 I found that changing the surface on which my TT sat altered the sound from the speakers ...

So in pursuit of more information about the effect freezing has on the final sound of a cd [in a domestic freezer] ..this could be described as the Aim of the experiment....does freezing a cd have any impact on the final sound ?

the method .....

ok a quick trip to Tesco and the purchase of two random £3 cd's in this case lynyrd skynyard's the collection [544 431 2]
both were placed in freezer bags in there cases [the bag ,the sort with the sliding seal]. One was placed in the central portion of our upright freezer in the tray where freezer blocks are stored, at -10c. The second in its bag in the same room and as close to the freezer as possible with out being on it. They were both left over night and will spend 24 hrs in there alotted position. That brings us up to the current time.....

What I propose to do is to remove the frozen cd and place it still in its sealed bag in the refrigerator at +4c and to leave it for another 24hrs.....the unfrozen disc will accompany the frozen one but not enter the fridge.

I will then first play the unfrozen disc and the repeat the same track on the frozen disc .....if I can't hear any difference I will pick a second track and repeat. If all results are negative ie no change then I should have listened to all the tracks [and all positions on the disc]

I'm open to reasonable suggestions if anyone can think of a better way forward.

Granville has postulated a very plausible modus operandi to explain why it could work ......

does anyone have access to the type of microscope that would be able to view the pits and lands ?

 

"'granville' Many thanks for a most interesting post !"

Me too!

It isn't in my view....and I think its a shame there is a section on the forum who would have you beleive it is.

Not all of us can afford the next xyz box for an upgrade and have to look for alternative ways of improving sonics.....besides ......if you have a passion for physics ......you learn a lot.

 

No pun intended?

The only thing I can think of is to have someone else switch the tracks for you in such a way as you are unaware of which is playing. Failing that, mark one CD with a pen and then cover the mark with a sticker and place an identical sticker in the same place on the other CD. Shuffle the CDs so you don't know which is which. Then listen - if you find one is better than the other, then peel off the sticker to find out which it was you preferred.

 

'Fraid not, Granville. Like all thermoplastics, polycarbonate has a glass transition temperature (Tg), where it turns from a "glassy" state to a "rubbery" state. The Tg for polycarbonate is 150°C. In other words, it remains in its glassy state even in the middle of the Sahara. This tremendous thermal stability is one of the attractions of polycarbonate. (P.S. My second tertiary qualification is in polymer science and I worked in the plastics industry for many years. I know of no mechanism like the one you suggest. If it did exist, you'd be sure that the industry would be using such a mechanism to modify its polycarbonates. It doesn't).

 

Thank you for the explanation Tones, I am humbled by your immense intellect in fact I now feel a complete twat. So to teach my self a lesson I won't forget I shall now go electrocute my genitals as punishment for the propagation of yet another baseless, incompetent and generally absurd theory.

 

Another gentleman has been able to put forward further information different to your own ....

I would give the self-mutilation a miss.

 

I have never read any Hifi forum thread that contained as much utter bollocks as this thread. Most of you are utterly deluded , it's no wonder the industry charlatans have such an easy time selling you foo.

 

As David says, no genital mutilation necessary, ol' hoss, it's merely that I have specialised knowledge in the field that you haven't. In any case, if you hear a difference and enjoy it, does it really matter that it's actually not there in reality? You have to satisfy only one pair of ears, your own, and everyone else's can go hang. Happy listening, refrigerated or otherwise.

 

"In any case, if you hear a difference and enjoy it, does it really matter that it's actually not there in reality?"

 

what in particular squ?

 

OT, anyone else notice that this diagram is wrong? The label is NOT on top of the acrylic layer (which is the read surface), but on the other side of the polycarbonate from the aluminised layer, which provides the reflective surface. The acrylic layer is there to protect the aluminium (which would oxidise at lightning speed if exposed to the atmosphere).