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Like always: This is not advice but a story. For instant fixes, stay away. I have no idea what made me think of this today but still.
Maybe it was the earlier than usual winter or the promise that it was going to be an especially cold one in Bloemfontein that made me bring up the subject. Mike and I had retreated from the cold of the shop to where we sat on the concrete floor of the stoep soaking up the rays of the watery winter sun, our feet on the dusty Free State soil. It was this same soil that later in the year would shift in tonnes to the East Free state, only for the wind direction to change and then shift, days later, in its entirety to the West, turning the entire South Free State red and all, once white, sheets and pillows a peculiar colour. It is this same reason that at the end of the year, there are far more Free Staters than locals in every village from Still Bay to Klein Brak.
Still, I said "Cryogenics".It was a buzzword that year and maybe I read about it in Stereophile. Mike said nothing, merely staring across Wilde Als avenue to a front garden where the winter wind had just blown the last brown leaf onto the yellowing lawn. Was he philosophical or longing for his children? He could not be contemplating his death as that was still 30 years away. Then he spoke;" You have access to liquid nitrogen storage, we have the same interconnect and CDs . Freeze yours and see what happens?" He was not being philosophical. He was being pragmatic.
So after a few conversations with the scientists, I was overthinking things again, I am dealing with inert stuff here, no need for complex computer programs. Just put the stuff in the tank and freeze it. The fact that it is at room temp and needs to get to -171C and up again will just be the normal cycle that is needed. Thus I snuck into the lab at midnight on a Friday. The Scientists would have helped, but they were sure to tell the Prof., who would just laugh and roll his eyes at my latest madness and even worse they would tell all the pretty girls in the ICU and ward who would shake their heads and think me even weirder than I was. Well, one did freeze her CDs in the deep freeze( and reported no change) and another did marry me and stays married to me 30 years later, despite far weirder schemes.
So into the tank went 1m of v d Hul First, 1M of Kimber KCAG, one Supertramp "Crime of the Century" and one Joan Baez "Diamonds and Rust in the Bullring" I do not think anyone who ever visited Marius Saunders's shop left without the latter CD. Three nights later I snuck into the lab again and removed the frozen products. Lying the interconnects carefully on the floor, these things took on a life of their own. Emanating sounds somewhere between the Titanic striking an Iceberg and a giraffe cow giving birth to sextuplets, the cables started jumping and gyrating in a dangerous fashion. I returned a few hours later and found both cables and CDs, seemingly unharmed. on the floor.
So how did it sound? Well, the van den Hul sounds just the way it always did. But the Kimber underwent a transformation. Gone was the Silver glare it always had, as well as, the Teflon "haze" but retaining its remarkable transparency and neutrality. It was marvellous, but over months lost its magic, sounding just like KCAG. I traded it years later at the Cable Co. The new owner probably never realised he was listening to cryo'd cable! The Supertramp sounded unchanged but the Baez! My CD probably always trailed behind Mike and Marius's but now it sounded magic. Losing all the early CD edge it acquired a higher-res like smoothness while her introduction of Spanish-Argentinian singer Mercedes Sosa became heart-stoppingly beautiful.
Sadly that CD was stolen and I cannot get the piece on any streaming platforms. Mike is gone and with it, the memories of that magic and cryogenics are just another of my stories.
Maybe it was the earlier than usual winter or the promise that it was going to be an especially cold one in Bloemfontein that made me bring up the subject. Mike and I had retreated from the cold of the shop to where we sat on the concrete floor of the stoep soaking up the rays of the watery winter sun, our feet on the dusty Free State soil. It was this same soil that later in the year would shift in tonnes to the East Free state, only for the wind direction to change and then shift, days later, in its entirety to the West, turning the entire South Free State red and all, once white, sheets and pillows a peculiar colour. It is this same reason that at the end of the year, there are far more Free Staters than locals in every village from Still Bay to Klein Brak.
Still, I said "Cryogenics".It was a buzzword that year and maybe I read about it in Stereophile. Mike said nothing, merely staring across Wilde Als avenue to a front garden where the winter wind had just blown the last brown leaf onto the yellowing lawn. Was he philosophical or longing for his children? He could not be contemplating his death as that was still 30 years away. Then he spoke;" You have access to liquid nitrogen storage, we have the same interconnect and CDs . Freeze yours and see what happens?" He was not being philosophical. He was being pragmatic.
So after a few conversations with the scientists, I was overthinking things again, I am dealing with inert stuff here, no need for complex computer programs. Just put the stuff in the tank and freeze it. The fact that it is at room temp and needs to get to -171C and up again will just be the normal cycle that is needed. Thus I snuck into the lab at midnight on a Friday. The Scientists would have helped, but they were sure to tell the Prof., who would just laugh and roll his eyes at my latest madness and even worse they would tell all the pretty girls in the ICU and ward who would shake their heads and think me even weirder than I was. Well, one did freeze her CDs in the deep freeze( and reported no change) and another did marry me and stays married to me 30 years later, despite far weirder schemes.
So into the tank went 1m of v d Hul First, 1M of Kimber KCAG, one Supertramp "Crime of the Century" and one Joan Baez "Diamonds and Rust in the Bullring" I do not think anyone who ever visited Marius Saunders's shop left without the latter CD. Three nights later I snuck into the lab again and removed the frozen products. Lying the interconnects carefully on the floor, these things took on a life of their own. Emanating sounds somewhere between the Titanic striking an Iceberg and a giraffe cow giving birth to sextuplets, the cables started jumping and gyrating in a dangerous fashion. I returned a few hours later and found both cables and CDs, seemingly unharmed. on the floor.
So how did it sound? Well, the van den Hul sounds just the way it always did. But the Kimber underwent a transformation. Gone was the Silver glare it always had, as well as, the Teflon "haze" but retaining its remarkable transparency and neutrality. It was marvellous, but over months lost its magic, sounding just like KCAG. I traded it years later at the Cable Co. The new owner probably never realised he was listening to cryo'd cable! The Supertramp sounded unchanged but the Baez! My CD probably always trailed behind Mike and Marius's but now it sounded magic. Losing all the early CD edge it acquired a higher-res like smoothness while her introduction of Spanish-Argentinian singer Mercedes Sosa became heart-stoppingly beautiful.
Sadly that CD was stolen and I cannot get the piece on any streaming platforms. Mike is gone and with it, the memories of that magic and cryogenics are just another of my stories.
