Cryogenic Information

Cryogenic Treatment

The Reason - Why?

Silver is refined and then formed from a liquid into a solid by being 'shocked' - thermal shock, making erratic lattice structure which can be clearly seen under magnification producing residual stress.
To illustrate - Drop an ice cube into a cup of hot water. The heating creates expansive stress on the exterior of the ice cube while the core is still frozen. The result is stress shear or cracking due to the differing rates of thermal 'growth'. The same is true of the silver cooling, just in reverse as the core is still molten.
Stress relieving takes place when the entire mass is at an equal temperature through-out surface through to core and then controlled through a wide temperature range. This is where DCT (Deep Cryogenic Treatment) enters.

The Science

DCT is a process that treats the silver at extremely low temperatures down to -185°C. Voyaging to extreme low temperatures creates a very dense molecular state. Having a equal rate of change in temperature through-out the material is key - if the rate is equal from surface to core, thermal compression and expansion take place equally, releasing internal stresses, by slowing down atomic movement, the internal molecular bonding energy is increased which promotes a structural balance throughout the material. The material as a result becomes homogeneously stabilized, reducing residual stress resulting in a extremely uniform, refined and dense microstructure with vastly improved properties.

As most research that has been done with DCT involves steel, it is still not clearly understood why it makes such a vast difference in audio?

what we do know:-

* DCT helps lower the resisitivity
* Internal stresses are reduced or eliminated
* Material becomes more compact - dissolving gaps, dislocations in the microstructure respectively reducing electron obstruction, which improves electrical conductivity

The Process

Using a microprocessor controller the silver is cooled very slowly in the treatment chamber down to -185°C at a fraction of a degree centigrade a minute and soaked at this temperature for 20 - 30 hours. The chamber is then warmed slowly back to room temperature. This as you can imagine, takes days, to complete the ramping down to 185c then soaking then the ramping back to ambient temperature. To achieve the cryo temperatures required for this process Liquid Nitrogen is employed, which is a non-flammable, non-polluting element which makes up 78% of the air we breathe. The process is therefore environmentally friendly. Our treatment method is a dry process, so the silver never come into direct contact with Liquid Nitrogen.