I have read Tom Marsden's letter in Hi-Fi News and also Keith
Howard's reply to it. Keith's reaction is as though Tom is
challenging domestic freezer versus cryogenic temperatures. No one
is disputing the fact that cryogenic temperatures go way, way, way
below those of a domestic deep freezer. What Peter Belt was
attempting to do, all those years ago, was to try to make people
aware that you can change 'sound' by freezing things using a normal
domestic deep freezer.

If cryogenic freezing is so significant, why has it taken over ten
years since the article by Robert Harley in the American
magazine "Stereophile" for Hi-Fi News to carry an article on
cryogenic freezing ? In my opinion the "Cryogenic Compact Disc"
article by Robert Harley in the October 1990 issue of Stereophile is
one of the most significant articles in the history of audio. If
the readership of Stereophile in the late 1990s was in the region of
around 86,000, then that means that 86,000 or more people have read
that article and that quite a number of those 86,000
were "Professionals in the audio industry". So, why all the silence
until now ? This cryogenic article by Robert Harley in October 1990
should have stood the audio industry on it's head !!!

Keith Howard, in his reply to Tom Marsden, seems to suggest that
freezing to cryogenic temperatures is quite important. So, why
didn't Keith Howard, et al, take notice of an important sentence in
the middle of Robert Harley's 'Cryogenic article' ?

to quote from Harley's article.
" In addition to CDs and LPs, the process has been used on
Laser-Vision-format video discs, speaker cable, interconnects,
integrated circuits and musical instrument strings".

Since Peter Belt introduced people to the freezing technique and
since Robert Harley's October 1990 article, the audio industry has
been sitting on a time bomb. Even now, certain prominent members of
the audio industry are still vigorously denying that cryogenic
freezing can have any effect on 'sound'.

Keith Howard has not yet reported on any listening experiments using
a cryogenically frozen interconnect. If he does experience any
improvement in the sound (which I am assuming that he will) this
experience should 'knock him back on his heels' - but not for any
conventional audio reasons !! Keith's reaction should be "Wait a
moment, wait a moment, there is something strange going on here, I
must investigate further." We will wait and see what happens.

In his reply to Tom, Keith is suggesting that he plans to do a 'shoot
out' between a domestically frozen interconnect and a cryogenically
frozen interconnect. I ask why, during the past 15 years, did Keith
not do a 'shoot out' between a domestically frozen interconnect
against an identical but untreated interconnect ? After all,
thousands of people who would be regarded as "Amateurs in audio" have
been doing so for quite a number of years !!

John Traynor quotes the reference to Max Townsend's 'cryogenic cable'
in Hi-Fi News. Max describes 'cooking' the metal conductor at a
temperature of 150 degrees Centigrade . I suggest people read
Martin Colloms "Cable Controversey" article (March 1984!!) Hi-Fi
News - amazingly 17 years ago - where Martin repeats Peter Belt's
technique of annealing the metals used as conductors at 257 degrees
Fahrenheit (Gas Mark 3). Peter knew that this technique improved
the sound but he also knew that he could not 'cook' the plastic
insulation material at this temperature so he tried another
technique - freezing the plastic insulation material in the
domestic deep freezer. He found that this also improved the sound -
and so history is made!!

May Belt.