Cryogenically Treated Tubes?

Does anyone have experience with Cryogenically Treated Tubes?

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i bought a new trio of eh 12bh7s cryo treated. I was never impressed by them (it might've been the tubes. I'm somewhat skeptical. Maybe just new spin on snake oil. I can't say all (any) the tube audio people on AK say "oh and you should cryo your tubes" its a pretty large body of tube people. your always welcome to give it a shot. I can't say given the opportunity on my next set of tubes I'd consider. The science on it is not cut and dry.

I purchased a matched quad of cryogenically treated Elektroharmonics KT88s about 3 years ago for my VTA ST-120. First off let me say the cryogenic treatment did not improve their longevity. One of the tubes in the set had a catastrophic failure after about 9 months taking the 5AR4 with it. During their tenure/burnin period, their sonic signature seemed to be satisfactory, although nothing special. Their frequency range seemed to be ballanced from bottom to top with no clear tendency toward any particular frequency enhancement/weakness. Therefore in comparrison to untreated valves, expending the money to rearange the metalurgic structure of the materials used in the valve does not seem to warrent the extra cost due to there being no apparent sonic improvement or increase in tube life.

Hi Arian, I don't know what you're running now. I used (untreated) KT120s for mine. Not quite a year yet. Very happy with sound (after major driver tube rolling experiment). I've heard from others several years in with no problems. Should you decide you're not happy with kt88 I think you'll be happy with these.

Hi Andy, thanks for the reply. As of now I have been running Penta Labs KT88SCs for a little over two years and have very good luck with them. I have not tried KT120s yet due to having another backup set of Penta Labs that I purchased at the same time and right now things are a litle tight, so I am unable to justify the expenditure. However I do have them at the top of my list of valves to try.

You probably know already, but driver tubes affects sound more than the output tubes. Food for thought. (especially the center one, but all of them)

The jury is still out for me on cryogenic treatment for vacuum tubes. I can see cryo improving strength in materials and OK it may help relieve stress on the welds inside a tube with the result increased life. But sounding better is a whole other area. I would think in some cases sound changes may go the other direction and be worse after treatment. You only hear about miraculous sound improvements so pardon me for being skeptical.

Thank you to everyone's input!