Hi Guys

I've been moving ahead with my testing on several levels. There are 3 systems setup to listen to, that's the best I can do at the moment. In my testing I am a little different than some of the other attitudes of testing. I try to find the good in music and recordings. This usually means I'm going to be tougher on the equipment and conditions playing things rather than the music itself. My thought with this is that this industry is not about the equipment, it's about the abilities to make a recording and replay it. If you read reviews on me or have seen me on TV you'll get the picture that mostly all of my work is based on listening. This is true. I don't take the numbers, graphs and specs nearly as serious as others, mainly because when they are researched you find mistakes in the testing method that are enough to make them off, and off is not where I want to be.

My 3 systems are 1) room based 2) headphone based 3) outdoor system based.

My tests are not quick fixes so this thread may drag on for a while, but I do already have some info and will update things as they happen.

I'll give a report in a bit as I got in some pretty good listening.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers first test.

The very first thing that needs to be made clear about testing is every system sounds different, and so does every condition. On all 3 of my systems I was able to make small adjustments to the physical components and in all 3 cases the sound changed. I even took a forth system that is more of a fixed setup and just moving the amp to a different surface changed the sound.

This is something I have done many times before so I'm going to move on in my testing with the fact that no two listening tests run on anything are the same.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Freezing is my next test which I have already done but am trying a few things first so I can be fairly accurate in my testing. Geoff and May of this forum have been talking about these treatments for a long time. I feel that any time someone is doing a test like this they should be treated (no pun) fairly and that's kinda hard to do because this is the internet and we all know the internet has a lot of loose screws runing around. Hopefully with me being someone who has no stake in whether the cyro or freezing does to me personally with the exception of possibily finding a step forward in listening people will look at this with respect.

I do a lot of condition treatments in making my products and have found them to be as important as the materials themselves. Mostly I do baking to open things up, then seal them, however when the cryo thing first started to be a big deal I jumped on it and have from time to time revisited the proccess. My designs are all about being able to make things adjustable and for this reason it's tough to say cryo is a good thing all around if it makes a change that can't go back to the beginning state of sound, but this doesn't mean that I shouldn't consider this as being one more choice. Meaning with the price of CD's being so low, big deal. I can have one stock and one cryoed and mark them as I do with other copies of CD's that have had things done to them or different qualities.

The spins people create though about all this stuff is what I find a drag, but this is not only done in the audio world, there are jerks lined up anywhere you find a keyboard. I wish there was a delete button on people but that's the way it is. I was reading this a bit ago http://forum.saxontheweb.net/archive/index.php/t-67423.html and was like "give the guy a break already". How can you get to something serious with all these bubble brains floating around? This is why I have my own forum. This will be a Topic on TuneLand as well as here and I have high hopes that we will find some gems.

I've also started a thread on TuneLand http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t250-cryo-freeze-testing#4498 so maybe the tunees will jump in.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi May

My plan is to report the listening part in bite size baby steps. After being here a while I have learned that things get off on spins much too fast and end up melting into a pot of opinion only. On this thread I'm just going to do it and give the results.

I'll let you and the others fill in the blanks if you wish, but I would recommend letting the results speak loud enough to be heard. I think everyone is aware of the different things to do and try by reading the other threads so there is no new ground to be broke here, just the doing and results from me doing it this time around.

Keep in mind I have done these test before. I will do them as fair as I can possibly do, and if someone wants to throw something at me during this I will be happy to throw it into the mix.

However I would like to ask you and others what you have found to be the difference in results as the temps are changed in the cryo treating? (listening results) Also how does the length of freezing time in a home freezer change the sound, and what is your recommended time of freezing?

thanks

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi May

This is extremely helpful! Using the right methods are very important. I am doing my first listening according to Geoff's 12 hour plan, then 2 hour fridge then room temp. After this I will do the same thing using your method.

thanks for your guidance!

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hmmmm how do I start?

First this CD is going back to the freezer to use May's method. 48hrs careful return to room temp then repeat, then listen.

Sometimes in this hobby we mistake change for better. I think if I were an audio salesperson in a store I could have sold this Frozen CD as something better. I would know the right words to describe what I have been listening to , and in posts past those words would mostly be true except for that word, better. I need to do the 48hr treatment cause this very well could have been half baked, or should I say half frozen. Most of all I could see a lot of audiophiles going for this, but the question is, would a lot of music listeners go for this? That I'm not sure of.

I was hoping to get everything I had plus something that went a step further. What I got was something removed from the music which made what was left sound cleaner. At first glance (treated) at the soundstage I thought "things cleaned up", but the more I listened I felt myself looking at things instead of taking in the music. Some might like this but it began to bug me, "what happened to the wholeness". I switched back to the non-treated and was greeted with everything that had been taken out. I could write a book on how much was lost. Based on this so far I could see some going for this, but it's not my thing, not yet.

Let me give you a small sample. If you listen to the beginning of "Mary Jane's Last Dance", you will hear the guitar on the right but there is also a cool part going on, on the left with fingering the harmonics. The treated CD gives you a very tight sounding guitar on the right and finger touch to the left. The un-treated CD gives you this as well only now the finger touching on the left rings as if you were in a room with a guitar and the ringing bounced off the walls front to back. Again going back to the treated the touch didn't lead into the ringing it just stayed still without much around it. I could see someone saying the treated was focused, however the music listener would say the un-treated was whole and alive.

A couple seconds later is where the real test for me begins. When the drums kick in on the treated they are carved and polite. On the untreated they explode and again the whole drum room attacks you front to back. A big difference here, for me in favor of the un-treated. The dynamics with the untreated were far more pace driven while the treated was like someone poured window cleaner on the frequencies but forgot to put back in the notes. Actually that's a good way to put it, the treated sounded like frequencies and the un-treated like notes. The treated like instruments with empty space around them, and the untreated the room they were played in.

Again this could totally be because the first go round was half baked and now I have got the CD back in there for a real cool down and then repeat.

I can tell (if this is as good as it gets) this is going to appeal to some and leave others without the emotion of the music. Lets see how this turns out or if the cryo folks need me to do more.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

I'm sorry guys, your going to have to go on your own audiophile spins. I think it would help if you guys read articles on me and the way I do things at the studios and with home audio, before you jump off your audio cliffs.

I'm gonna leave things to others who wish to take this hobby in other places than the music. I've written the why's many times over and if you want to research that, have fun, but I'm not here to play Radio Shack.

You need to spend more time on TuneLand and the TuneLand archives if you would like to know where I stand on the whys. Stereophile forum as I have said before is too full of "nothing to do with music spins" for listeners.

All I'm going to do on this thread is faithfully listen and report the sound. If that makes anyone uptight, pour yourselves a nice glass of wine, turn on the music and chill, or start your own thread.

May, I'm not out of kilter with anyone, they have ears and can like things the way they want. I'm simply picking out what is there and encouraging people to have fun exploring. If they like the treated I'm perfectly fine with that. You audiophiles are interesting. You guys push push push but when a pro listens to the music and hears something even a little different than you want them to, you freak out all over the place. Relax, it's music not sound wars. Some people are going to like one thing and others another, that's what tuning is about. Just let me go through my listening tests and you guys can put all the spins on it you want. May, before you made your comment about heat, did you even look at TuneLand to see what I do? Of course not or you would have found why I cure things to make the harmonic structures as big as they can get, after that is when we tune back in to a desired spot. We make things go just as tight as anything you can do with the freezing, but we start with one extreme, just like musical instruments and tune them up. If you think that is out of kilter you might want to spend more time in the instrument factories or try opening up things first then closing them in.

So far the freezing closes things in to a spot, a particular tune. If that's the right place for someone I'm happier than a 17 year old on prom night, but if that person wishes to add back in what was taken out their screwed. Pitch will only start at it's lowest point and go up from there. If freezing goes lower than not freezing or brings out more I will gladly say this but with the quick freeze this did not happen (do you want me to lie?), sorry but that's the way it is, maybe the longer freeze or even a true cryo will make this different and if so I will jump all over this band wagon.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

What surprises me, is not one of the people giving input came up to say, "oh let me try that and see what I hear".

I want to make a comparison here so people reading this can see how far the audiophile is away from the music world. May makes a statement that I am out of kilter, I'm not exactly sure what 2000 was saying so I'll leave him out of this. Sorry 2000, no offence my mind is just in a different place.

When I had my studios on music row in Nashville, they caught on as referencing rooms when you could get the Oak Ridge Boys out of the listening chair lol (they love Abbey Road). They also along with a few others did vocals at my place. My referencing studio was right in front of the Dixie Chicks and across the street from Garth's, Alabama, Sony and about 3000 other studios all shoved into one place. When someone cut something they would grab their CD and go from studio to studio to hang out and pick up on what the others were hearing. From time to time I was invited to listen or do a tuneup on projects like the remaster of Titanic or Michael Mcdonald, Kenny Loggins or whatever was floating around, or just a general tuneup. In the years I was there, there were meters and mics and boards and all kinds of goodies, but I never saw people using the meters or the way the sound looked on the screen to make the sound. The screen was a tool to make adjustments, but they were made based on what people were hearing with the exception of a few mastering shops who got the product after the decisions were made. I'm not saying they were perfect, and maybe some were, but what I'm saying is the people in the music world were listening to the music and the different parts and pieces. I don't see that going on here and haven't yet since I have come up to write. To be honest you guys would be laughed at if you went around these people with your spins, think about it. The audiophile is so screwed up they don't even know what to look for in the recording to see if it is good or bad, right or wrong. Someone like myself comes up from the music biz and you jump all over the place when I make a comment, your like "that's not audiophile", but what you don't do is pick up that recording throw it on and say "oh yeah I hear that". It doesn't have to be "oh yeah I hear that and agree, or disagree". In the real world their not that insecure. When I was a part of recordings we sat around and made decisions together and had fun doing it. We listened to the same song from hundreds of different view points. Same song hundreds of ways, on hundreds of systems all sounding different.

Audiophiles want to know "why?", like that is the hobby. Well get on a bus and move to Nashville or LA or any other place they have studio clusters and learn. Don't sit there and act like you know what the hobby is, your just a tiny part of it. Most of the time a very confused part of it that is so stuck in debate your afraid to sit there with a bunch of real music people listening. You make all these rules and tests and do your best to make them offical and call your systems reference and yet you've (many of you) have never heard a reference system and how and what they are used for. Don't fool yourself into thinking because you have spent some money on "high end audio" and have a cool looking living room, that you are up on listening or recording or why something is recorded. Don't let your egos take you away from something that is as cool as music. If you don't pick up that CD and reference just like those studios, able to make changes, your not a reference and your not an authority. Your an audiophile with a toy meter and a keyboard, and your not even making comments about the recording, your stuck in your world of "why". Who gives a d*** but other stuck people, some who don't even have systems or have them shoved up against a wall somewhere with furniture inbetween the speakers. Really guys? Really?

I think a lot of you folks need to get off your highend highhorse and stop acting like you have this thing that is magical and will change the world. You sit there with systems that have one sound one way and you actually think it's the reference! Seriously folks get in your car, drive around and see the rest of the world. This is about music, not some magical one way absolute sound street. This is about an artform and the ability your systems have to convey it. If we have the ability to make changes and get closer to the original studio sound be happy for us, If we have the ability to flavor things to our personal liking say bravo. If we have systems that play music that you think is bad or good clap your hands. If you want to do it you can to, but if you stay in your spins your only going to spend your hobby thinking you are right and everyone else is wrong without ever even knowing what a recording is about.

I'm going to ask you again and you can spin your whys on this. If you recorded in a room that is 25 x 25, and your playback is giving you 8 x 5 (don't lie), is that a reference?

There's so much more to this than talk folks. Now let me listen and give my results!

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi 2000

Thanks for your reply, it helps me to see what your seeing, or looking at.

2000 said

"Michael, while I can’t speak for everyone I think the big item here is a matter of perspective. You say people in the recording world do not care about why things sound good just as long as they do, which is a very generic statement."

mg

Did I say that? I don't see me saying that anywhere.

2000 said

"For instance I guarantee your Pro Audio Company’s (lavry engineering, Adams, SPL, PMC, Genelec , etc.) invest substantial R&D to understand why things sound better and quite frankly it’s their job to. Just because at a listening session no one cared why things sounded better doesn’t mean there are not people in the professional world that need to consider the technical aspects or in other words the “why”. I agree this likely isn’t the recording artist but somewhere in the chain people had to consider why. I’m also going to depart a bit from the goals of the home user and the professional user. While I’m sure you are aware, the purposes at the end of the day for any label is to get a song to translate well for its release to the public so it can sell. The key to that sentence is translate well so if your system is missing something and you can account for that it can still translate well. It goes back to your statement that some people from the industry listen in their cars to see how things sound in addition to the Studio. I also, I know some people bring in their own monitors and forego the use of the larger more expensive studio setup during mixes at times. All this gets back to translating well. I’m assuming mastering houses may need to be a bit more on their toes, but don’t know that for a fact"

mg

You would need to go look and explore for yourself to make something more than assuming, I did. I'm sure all companies do some type of R&D, but I'm not the R&D police. I have however been consultant for some pretty sizable companies and can tell you first hand the R&D also meets practical in the chain, and even something as simple as shipping or going "green" can change a product design dramatically. I've been in these meetings personally and have seen the sound end of things being canned and moved in a completely different direction because of a smart political or physical part of the product out weighing the performance. Many companies make products to fit the story line and not for the ultimate in sound. "well we have to do this, so lets build around that being a must", is far more common than you know or have been told.

2000

"Now stepping back to here, I think people are generally interested in what you are saying and the methods you promote, and I think that’s why you get the question regarding how does it work. If people dismissed it, you wouldn’t have a discussion since no one would waste their time. But with that said, I still don’t quite understand how your products perform and how they are better than other acoustic treatment. I look on tuneland and I see diagrams with a picture of a guy confused and then a picture of the guy enlightened. I chuck these advertisements up to being poor marketing, since I do believe you have something here as you customer all re-enforce that, but this doesn’t really explain the story."

mg

The reason for having TuneLand is for people to go as deep as they wish in the "tune". If you pick one pic to make a point than that's all your going to get. Most people tell me that TuneLand is the deepest listening forum in the world covering every angle of how and why audio works. If you haven't seen this then you should ask yourself the question "how hard is it for 2000 to hit his keys and post that question on TuneLand?"

If I'm interested in something I usually go to their website and learn what I need to from it or contact a rep to find out more, or even the designer. A forum makes this even better cause I can see the interaction between that designer and the people he or she is working with. Why would I go to an outside forum and ask questions of detail when I could go directly to the sources forum and ask? My logical brain says, that is because I'm interested more in the debate than the actually reality of a product. Why would someone on Stereophile ask me questions that have already been answered, by pointing to the source, and yet the questions keep getting asked as if there is some sort of something to prove? Go to where the proof is would be what I would do not an audiophile forum where half of the people who come here have issues with someones opinion.

2000

"It’s also known that absorption and diffusion both can have unintended consequences so a new method is interesting, but I think everyone in this hobby has come across products that claim to change the world but really don’t. I think this is why you see people asking why, is they want to understand how to make their systems better. To be honest it would be great to see a white paper from you discussing room setup and going a bit deeper on what you are doing since the goal for any room should be flat frequency response and uniform decay times which is not easy or potentially even possible to achieve so compromises need to be made by definition."

mg

Again you see me posting links to TuneLand http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/ . This is probably the largest white paper in the history of high end audio. Both it and www.tuneland.info . In there are papers and Power points on tuning made buy the instrument companies themselves as well as reviews covering tests on the room by people like Bob Hodas. Again I daily post more info and all someone has to do is come up and ask the question. So far you or the others on this forum have not asked anything that has not been covered on TuneLand. Some of the testing I do and have done are way to involved to put up on here and I don't want to spend all my time defending when I could be teaching. For that reason I have choosen to only go so far on here. If someone has a problem with that they really should look into posting on TuneLand where there are less distractions and more open minds. Not saying the minds here are not open, but TuneLand I see as being more so as everyday they are looking at the whole and are very honest about it without hidden agendas, sale slants or pounding of chests.

2000

"If you’re looking to bring people to your side, white papers and case studies are a great way to communicate those ideas. For instance you say absorption and diffusion are bad (I hope you realize how big of a statement this is) and on the surface no one will say that’s wrong but what would be more interesting is a case study on the room that used the previous vs what you did. To me this is a great listening test that we can’t do ourselves (we don’t have the products or the ability to tune the room as to you mentioned), taking that one step forward, adding pictured and measured results would also provide great color to what was going on. To me this is knowledge building and also how you show things could be better. I think going beyond room treatment incorporating how electronics and everything you are doing sum up to a new way of listening would be an interesting read. This isn’t us vs you, but this is the nature of any technical hobby, through questions we find answers and as a developer you should welcome questions as that’s how you improve your products that’s how things go to the next level"

mg

I'm totally aware and always have been of my statements being important, but what's more important than "me" is helping the industry get closer to the audio signal and learning how to use it better. That's something once I realized how big of a deal it is changed my job as you can read my history. I could have settled and easily been a part of the "norm" but when you discover things of such huge importance you have to decide if you are in this for you, or for the bigger picture. I also would like to say (and it doesn't take much to see this is true) that I don't buy into high end audio BS. If you do a little reading you will find that I am a big audiophile myth buster, so this would be weird indeed if the myth buster was making myths himself.

There have been some 80,000 clients who have made the switch from something or nothing to the tune. If I would have had TuneLand back in the 90's it would have been wonderful. But I started TuneLand in 2004 long after truck loads of file cabinets full of clients went bye bye sadly, but that's life. I'm not the only one that has been wiped out by a fire or flood or bad house keeping before converting to computer. Rebuilding files is no fun but having a forum has helped tons and also given me a chance to put a lot of things in writting that maybe wouldn't have ever been done.

2000

"Also, just want to state something that may be lost. You say people here don’t listen. I don’t think that is quite fair. While I can’t speak for other I do listen but prefer to use the forums as a way to build knowledge and get new perspectives on idea. Which to me is why I focus on the why more. I’m assuming there are many people in this camp here."

mg

This is something your own members have said to me and have said they are happy to see me pointing to it. So you should take that up with them or others who see this forum being more talk than walk.

2000

"Now back to the CD test, I don’t have a ton of color on it so it would be inappropriate for me have anything but a rudimentary opinion that has no basis."

mg

As I have said on this thread I'm here to listen and give my results based on that.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi 2000

I wanted to find places on TuneLand for your question.

"It’s also known that absorption and diffusion both can have unintended consequences so a new method is interesting, but I think everyone in this hobby has come across products that claim to change the world but really don’t. I think this is why you see people asking why, is they want to understand how to make their systems better."

http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t222-don-t-kill-the-sound
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t200-understanding-acoustical-pressure-zones
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t239-what-is-a-note
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t80-what-is-sound
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t201-what-is-a-soundstage
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t202-learning-your-room
http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t117-acoustics-too-little-vs-too-much

These are areas where you could sign in and ask, and this is just a tiny sample of the simple areas to go to, they get more involved as you look through TuneLand. What you'll notice though is I cover every part of audio that comes along and am more than willing to go as deep as someone wants unless it's just another debate then it would have no meaning or purpose for me.

I cover mechanical transfer.

http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t24-understanding-mechanical-transfer

interaction of room & speaker

http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t184-is-your-room-playing-your-speakers-or-are-your-speakers-playing-the-room

and all kinds of other stuff

http://www.michaelgreenaudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=89&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

http://www.michaelgreenaudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1397&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Mostly though info is shared on the members own threads, that way you can see their involvement with the questions and how it applies to their person listening.

TuneLand may take a little time to work your way around but it offers something not many other places do. A friendly place where you can explore tuning on your system, or others or as you have asked the hows and whys in not only concept, but real time "doing".

It would take me years to put this info on Stereophile, but I hope you and the others can use this to be yet another source.

But, if you say I haven't covered something you probably haven't looked for it.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

If you are a detail freak without wanting fat on the steak, and if you have a system that is slightly heavy or boomy by nature and there is no way for you to change that, this might just be a tweak that is down your alley. I want to say that at first listen I again was thinking this is cool. It's something I picture a lot of audiophiles wanting if they don't like the space between the space. I've heard a lot of systems sound this way. But, my system plays music setup like it is with a big stage and it's easy to see any holes, and I like something in those holes.

Let me put it this way. Picture listening with spot lights brightly shining on the instruments, that's the freeze. If you were to start turning up the lights enough to feel the atmosphere of the room, that's the untreated.

If I did a quick side by side for you, I wouldn't be surprised one bit if you choose the treated. It draws attention to itself right away, but for me, I have to feel like I'm in the room, and the untreated had that lived in feeling.

it was kinda like this

I was in Dayton Ohio hanging out with one of Ringo's snare drum makers. He made a titanium snare that was so fast that when he did a roll it was stinging. After I listened a while though I started to crave my old wooden Rogers. Later in the week I was in a sitting in Detroit with him and VH1 and we were going around the room all day answering questions and gabbing about all kinds of things. That's pretty typical. You spend all day talking then they use ten minutes on the show, I don't know didn't watch it. Anyway, during the day I would walk around and mess in the different rooms including the drum booth. I kept hearing the drum designer play this snare in the other room for the folks and then talk a little and back to the snare to make his point. I found myself lightly playing the snare that was in the booth. Big difference, the titanium would snap, but the pearl in the room had body and resonanted in a fuller range. That's what I feel when listening to the treated CD. I could hear the snap but was waiting on the body, that sound that rolls off of things.

I am sure some might like this better, but it's not quite my thing, and I'm thinking I could do this with my tuning. So I decided to take this the next level to make sure I wouldn't eat my words someday. I listened for a while to the treated CD, then after feeling like I got it, I took the untreated and tuned the system to do what the treated one did. I was right it wasn't all that hard to do, but while playing around I found that I could get that sound and then back off enough to bring the body back in. I played for about an hour, then let the system settle a little.

Later I put back on the treated CD, and found it harder to get it to give me the sound of the untreated. Fact is I'm not sure it did give me my sound back. It's like something was erased. I'm going to have to let this settle and come back cause it does sound like info with the treated CD is gone. Reshaped I can understand, but gone? Was the pitch shifted or could it be that some info is no longer able to be read?

I have to revisit this.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi Folks

I needed to do some careful listening, putting the system to a what I consider a neutral setting. An extreme revealing setting that opens the stage to big 3D experience. I worked on it all night and have been letting it settle for a few hours, cause that's my thing "being thorough".

At this point, there are most certainly black holes in the stage with the treated CD. I'm now wondering if yet another CD needs to be purchased and sent off to the cryo plant for treatment to see if it does better than the freezer treating.

I'm going to go two more steps here with this test. One is another 48 hours of freezing which has already started and two, after this a heat treatment to see if the info comes back or if once treated it is lost forever. Since this could be a reading issue do to the changed mechanics of the CD maybe this can be reversed and the info is not gone at all but simple masked. Only way to find out is to do and that's what's going to happen.

I've enjoyed reading Costin's view of what is happening and will be interested to see some results over on the other Dynamic thread.

I want to thank you guys and gals for being civil on this thread and letting me do my part of the testing without "spins". The testing is not complete but you have been what we call "a great crowd".

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

May said

"I appreciate, Michael, that you have not actually recommended any particular ‘baking’ procedure for others to try, even though you have obviously found one which you believe gives you improvements in the sound.
What does surprise me is how ‘out of kilter’ you are with so many others with you not preferring the sound after trying the ‘freezing’ process on CDs. Do you also find using the more complicated procedure of the cryogenic freezing gives you the same result ?"

In the future as in the past I will give true cryo more test. True as in sending to a cryo plant. As far as baking goes I have given the formula to a few people but it seems like most of them come back to me to do it for them. This is probably because of the extremly slow method I use to do it, and the fact that I listen to the things I work on in real time and make adjustments through the curing and finishing or anything else I do to voice it, including choosing the material (pretty picky dude). Maybe it's Grandma's cooking syndrome, I don't know, but I think that as things cure or are treated with any kind of conditioning it lends room for artistry.

I had a wood worker here yesterday, that is in training. When she heard the tonality of what I was doing she jumped back and started laughing. Don't think she was expecting that board to go from a dull piece of wood to a musical instrument. I showed her what to listen for before moving to the next step, and that is maybe why some may want me to do it or at least supervise because I listen to the process carefully as it's being done.

people are talking about the why

I've been doing a fresh round of testing on the WHY? Instead of theory I actually did these tests and it may or may not be useful to some. I have taken other materials and done the freezing treatment to them while doing the CD so that I had some type of reference when others started asking questions. This trick goes back as long as I have been designing and helps me to see things more clearly.

When my freezer was waiting for the CD to be put back in I started freezing some wood, cones, springs, a speaker driver, a transformer, rubber, plastic, cable and a chassis cover. These tests are not complete and won't be for a while but one thing that has been common in all so far is that the resonant frequency when put back in my system shifted up. All four pieces of wood became very pitchy (out of tune) and have made the system do weird things. I'm going to keep my eye on this to see what positives happen along with any negatives cause obviously all things need settling time.

If I'm on the right track though and if my past can come into play when things are heated the sound gets bigger (if not over heated), and when things are chilled the sound gets smaller.

Btw, the treated CD lost volume in my system compared to the untreated after the second freeze. It sounded like someone turned down the volume one or two levels with the treated. I was reminded of this when listening to the wood cause it did the same thing. I'm not sure if I paid attention to this on the first go but it was something noticed on the second.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Last night I gave some thought to the question that keeps getting mentioned WHY?

The WHY? in audio or any physical activity comes down to one simple answer. Something I brought up on Stereophile a few times now and got jumped on for my terminology, yet when I revisit the question and do a little studying I come back to the same answer. The term that sums it up for me is "Vibratory Code".

Before I jump in on it, I'd like to give you guys a chance to rip this term apart, then I'll come and describe the best a can what is going on.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi Folks

I started working on a thread that gets into the WHY's from my view in real time testing http://tuneland.techno-zone.net/t79-vibratory-code#4519 . Of course there is a ton more on this up there but wanted to start putting this in one place.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Bill wrote

"The last 13 years of my professional engineering career have been focused on the determination of root cause & corrective action for issues related to variations in process output.

In this time I have yet to find that one single variable was ever responsible for any change in that system's output.

In any process, whether it be product development, production, or audio reproduction, the vast number of inputs responsible for the final output are never all stable at one time.

This is one reason reproducing any test result can be difficult.
It also is one reason we so often have many varying results when comparing how the same changes effect one persons system differently than someone else's."

mg

This is a great post Bill!!! It's why I design low mass variable systems. It's a lot easier to variably tune than it is to make fixed tuning jumps.

When things are in tune there is something that happens that is quite remarkable and for those who have experienced this (not many have) it's a totally different ball game. On TuneLand I call it the "float", and it is very rare. The stage becomes vast and you loose the system altogether, it's huge and hard to describe unless someone hears it but for me at least it changed everything. In a Tunable Room it's easier to get but I've gottin it a few times in regular room (not often). The stage when it happens is 360 all around the person and you can see, and feel, the recordings real space. It's the reason why I try to push people for bigger stages cause the absolute sound is there but rarely happens, and not without some serious mechanical, electrical and acoustical work. I heard it for the first time back at TuneVilla and it honestly freaked me out.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi Catch

Yes, in a way that's how a soundstage sounds when it is opened up, a lot like Q sound. With stereo most of the effect is in front because our speakers are infront but many things in the mix goes all around. It's much more 3D than what the typical setup does, more real, like your in the room with the mics instead of looking at them. It's not weird out of balance sounding either but extremely solid images.

Let's say someone is making a halo miking setup, which is almost always done. That's when you put an up close mic, and then one behind it, and then one even further back for the hall, then you mix between the 3. On an open setup you can hear that space go as front to back as side to side (if a big pattern mic). So if that far away mic is 15 or 20 feet away you will hear the sound in that big of a radius. The bonus is with effects. Rock takes on a completely different face. Outboard effects don't have the same patterns as mics do, and a lot of recordings that are rock have huge stages. That's why if someone is describing a strickly front stage I know they're only getting part of the recording because it's a lot bigger than just in front.

"Not really on topic, but it does relate to reflections and time. A few years ago, I installed a huge window out my back living area to enhance the view. Not long afterwards, I started noticing sounds from my tv that seemed to be coming from behind and beside me. I would be sitting on the couch watching a show and suddenly turn my head as if something was going on in the other room. My wife was like, "What the hell?"
It took some time to adjust to that."

That was actually a pressure zone. The rear pressure zone got bigger than the one in front.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi Drooble

Good to see you! I'm listening to Joe Jackson "body & soul" after I had on the greatest hits. Big stage on Body & Soul.

It would be kinda fun to watch people listen to "wish you were here" in real space (the float). I wonder what the reaction would be their first time through?

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi Guys and Gals

The 3rd freezing is finished, and the CD returned to the player. Same results as before and maybe even more. Holes in the stage. It appears that the more the freeze happens the bigger the stage holes are. This is only a guess, but I wonder if the longer treating does harm to the CD? Maybe the cryo treatment is more stable.

I'll now do some slow heat treatment to see if I can get the CD back to it's original state.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi Geoff

I'll let it sit a few days and see what happens.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi Guys

Wanted to give a listening update. It's been about 4 days since the 3rd freezing. The results are the same, missing info on the treated CD. I've tested this on 3 CD players now with the same results. I'm going to give even more time but I have a feeling at this point that this is going to be the way it is.

thermal shock

It appears that if the thermal shock plays a part in the material on the CD I would have heard it taking place in real time, but this has not been the case. I believe that once the CD gets to room temperature it is pretty much done. Not so with the other materials as they have all had their own schedules of settling. The difference between the signal passing through, or touching a part, or being read (the CD) seem to all have their own settling pace.

systems and listening to the in betweens

Having 3 systems setup has helped a lot in the testing. It has givin me a close up view of freezing on several different levels, the most important perhaps is I now feel confident that Cryo (freezing) is not a one size fits all solution. Freezing did something different with each part I treated. It was not a case where you can say "do this and you'll get that" when comparing something like cables to a CD. They do have some things in common but there are somethings that are very different such as pitch.

For example two different lengths of interconnect freeze (pitch wise) differently. This was pretty surprising but now looking back at it, this makes sense. With the cable a sound was locked in, but depending on the length of the cable it locked into it's own specific. Kinda like shortening a string on a guitar. This was weird to get my head around and at times I got lost but made my way back to the testing which will keep going on.

From what I am hearing from the CD info comes up missing. On the other materials it seems like the treating, freezes things, is a particular setting and to me so far is not as flexible when the signal passing through it is doing something that the freeze treatment does not want it to do. Freeze treating on one thing may sound cleaner on one recording for example, but on the next recording the sound is distorted. I'm talking about the materials such as the springs or cable. It's like they went from breaking in with a recording to either liking it or hating it. This was strange to listen to and made me think about the whole over build thing again. Locking in to a particular sound limits what you can play and the freezing made this certainly worse.

I look for things that open up the sound and make it possible to listen to more recordings, but this so far seems to be heading in the opposite direction, making the sound a one note type of thing and if the recording has been mixed to something other than what thiese parts want to play a fight takes place, and this fight is a lack of bottom end and an unward shift. A clean but lack of life sound, and when playing complex music that fight is easy to detect cause you can hear the frequency clustering and stage holes. This is making me wonder and even question how intently people are listening to these treatments, and should they be relistening a taking a more serious look into the details in the music. Not just a clean up surface listen but a true hard recording facts finding listen.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

I thought my post on the other thread talking about DR was something that fits in nicely here so I'm including it as part of this thread as well.

"I have to say for the record, I don't go in to any test to prove it wrong but to prove it right, that is my nature. However I am very tough on my own listening. My job has always been to get the best out of things or find a replacement or better way. If you read any reviews, articles or shows on me that's pretty much a given.

I entered this particular testing round because of Geoff's and May's enthusiasm. It only benefits me when finding something true by others as it gives me a wider field to tune in. But I'm not going into that field as a cheerleader unless it indeed shows me a benefit (something new or gained) over what we do in tuning already. Adding something is always a plus, but puting something in the chain that stalls or is something that has to be worked around is not a good thing for tuning. It's a block when we are trying to find a passage.

I look at "an audio nay" as something or someone who is puting their own interest or benefit above the sound, industry or hobby. I look at the freezing and treating thing as a choice not an audio nay. Does it fit into a bigger variable picture? Only if the listener chooses to make this "fixed" decission, but this is not mine to make only judge how it fits in to the bigger picture of and for the tune.

For example (always have an example for a statement). If I'm listening to horns, which I am right this second, and they were right on the edge of bite, I wouldn't want to feed them something that sent the pitch up. Instead if anything would be bringing the tone down just a hair and open up the air around the horns. If a tweak, any tweak, can't do this, it is something that does me no good for that recording.

What I'm not going to do is sit in my room and blame the recording, or use I tweak that goes in the wrong direction for that recording. Instead what I will do is apply the right tune and enjoy the music.

Painting a picture that I am "an audio nay" would be one big mistake for the industry cause they know me as someone who is always on the side of giving better sound. Why else would I take apart this industry one screw at a time to find out what is going on? It's certainly not for the money LOL.

I appreciate others, and the contributions they make but I also "do" test the industry on every level I can as a listener and don't show bias, unless or until it is needed in my own recommendations on someones particular setup or situation. I do believe my testing of the freezing will benefit those hunting for this particular sound and fix, but where I get off the boat is when it is said to be a cure all for the industry instead of a sound setting and choice. It's not "the choice" but "a" choice.

The only correct choice would be the one that allows us to play anything we wish any time we want."
____________________________________________

Everytime I get in a part or piece or component to work with (this happens weekly) I have to accept the fact that there is sometime new that has yet been listened to by anyone else but what I have in this particular setup. It's amazing to me how wonderfully unique each change to a system is and for me adds to the excitement of the hobby. It's very strange to me that anyone would think that a system has arrived. The whole concept of music is one of a flowing change and we can either think we have something to judge with or we can become part of this ever moving world.

practice practice and more practice is the name of the game

If you are not an active practicing participant of sound, not only does it stop you from growing in the art, it also becomes telling to the others that are doing the practicing.

Many listeners only get to experience music on a very limited basis, and that to me is not really being a high end audio audiophile. Being able to take those horns or voices and make them come to life is the magic in this hobby. It may happen from time to time on many systems but any time you can unlock the magic in a recording and find things you never had any idea were there is what makes this audiophile experience magical. Most times it's not going to happen through plug and play or your favorite tweak, but more you understanding how to shape the info on a recording and knowing what is real or not. This is something only learned through experience and a daily practice discipline.

michael green
MGA/RoomTune

Hi Guys

Just a reminder that this thread is about listening to freezing and cryo. By now shouldn't you guys have your own boxing ring setup on a dedicated thread? I don't wish to down play your comments on here about the topic as they were helpful. It would just be nice if sometimes we stayed on or were able to get back on topic after sidetracks so the readers could see a thread that followed some type of synergism.

thanks

michael green
MGA/RoomTune