Thanks to all the brave lads who tried my experiment. I am happy that you were able to gain benefits to your sound from this. I've been experimenting with tweaks like this for years, so I already know it works. But it always helps to have confirmation from others. To the skeptics who didn't try it but nevertheless said it can't work because you can't understand how it would and weren't told already that it does, if you prefer to allow your beliefs to limit your sound quality, that is of course your choice. To those who would be inclined to fall in line with the naysayers, I maintain that from my experience of putting numerous mp4 players through the freeze process, I have not had a single problem with the units; and neither has anyone else here in two years of reporting success with this technique. So IMO, there's nothing to lose by trying it.
I did not really explain where this comes from or why this process should work, because it automatically generates controversy, and I did not want to weigh the whole thing down with theoretical debates, and the usual dismissals of "placebo"! But I think there are enough people now who have reported good results, vs. no one(?) who has reported it did not work, to dismiss the usual dismissals of "expectation bias" etc. If you have never heard of this process, it's only because you have never heard of it. In the application of CD's, for which it is better known, it was reported in The New York Times, Stereophile magazine, online audio magazines like Positive Feedback, and there's even a video on YouTube demomstrating the process. My idea of using mp4 players and their phones instead of freezing CD's however, is a little more unique.
I understand that it is -very- difficult for people unfamiliar with the concepts behind this, to understand what's actually going on. For that to happen, it requires a lot of research into the phenomenon it is based on; which I have, but no one else does. What I mean by "difficult" is.... it has nothing to do with say, the idea that chips operate well under low temperatures (if so, the improved sound would disappear after a day or two when the player is at room temp. - yet the effect is permanent), or affecting the crystal lattice structure of the material the components are made of (this doesn't happen at the temperatures of a domestic freezer!). Those are just a few popular theories that try to fit the explanation into a conventional model of what is known and accepted. This phenomenon deals more with what is little known and little accepted. Trust me, the conventional theories do not "hold water", when you go deeper into researching the phenomenon (as I have).
The "little known and little accepted" reason behind the process, is that it affects the perception of the listener himself. Which doesn't refer to autosuggestion. That refers to the process of modifying the nature of energy fields the player and phones posess (as do all objects in our environments), in a way in which they become more beneficial to humans, rather than adverse. This reduces a kind of tension that affects human senses, which in turn helps improve perception of sound in general. See, if I would have said that, no one would have tried it in the first place!
Anyway, this is better known as "the Belt phenomenon". The freeze process that I described here, and the phenomenon of energy fields in the environment that affect the human senses, was first discovered and developed by a British audio engineer named Peter Belt, some 25 years ago. (At about the same time, a Canadian engineer named Ed Meitner was discovering similar things freezing cd's and cables at cryogenic temperatures. It was Belt who discovered the same thing could be done at freezer temps, and who went further in understanding the actual reason behind the effect).
For those who are interested in the process, and want to know more about the man who discovered it, or other "weird" but free tweaks that could help improve the sound of your mp4 player and everything else, point your browser to my site:
www.theadvancedaudiophile.com (n.b. For the time, it might take a couple of minutes to load the home page, but everything should be normal after that). If you want to try to understand the reasoning behind the freeze phenomenon from the master himself; this would be a good place to start:
The "Freezing" Saga or this 3rd party review:
Belt.
All those who have experimented with the Freeze Effect process have gone further than most high end audiophiles are willing to! So props to the pioneers. Because before every major new scientific discovery, observations had to be made. And if we don't challenge the conventional, we don't advance.