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Cryo treatment of engine blocks.

NASA started it all with cryo treatment of space telescope optics and precision metal parts. Race car engine builders have adapted cryo treatment to relieve internal stresses in engine blocks and other parts. Making the cylinder bores truly round allows the piston rings to seal more completely. This gives a performance and endurance edge in the extreme conditions of motor car racing. See the link for an article on what it takes to get cylinder bores to be sufficiently round.

Most materials expand when heated and shrink when chilled. Heating metal parts anneals out stresses from casting or work-hardening, but can cause phase changes because the atoms have more thermal energy and can move around more easily. Your knife-blade experience is based on this.

Chilling parts applies increased mechanical force to the stressed regions. This can overcome the reduced mobility of the atoms and force them to move about in order to relieve the stresses.

Cryo treatment of metal parts in things like AC outlets and plugs may improve the mechanical performance and electrical conductivity of the parts. I don't have personal experience in comparing treated against untreated versions of the same parts, but I don't see any reason to doubt that there is an audible benefit in some cases.

Similarly, I don't know if there is any benefit to chilling compact discs from personal experience. My experience with other CD tweaks is that there has been little to no detectable benefit. The amount of benefit, if any, would depend on how robust the CD player read mechanism is. Making a given disc flatter or more transparent may help with marginal read mechanism performance, but give no benefit in another machine with a robust mechanism.

Your comment about faith cuts both ways: by that logic, your prejudice prevents you from hearing what others report.

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