Hifimaniac: Sorry to hear of your problems. I've cryoed a fair bit of cabling (Kimber 8TC speaker, 2 Cardas Golden power cords, 3 DIY JPS cords, another DIY cord made from 47 Labs OTA, interconnects made from 47 Labs OTA terminated with Eichmann bullet plugs, SVHS cables and component video cables) and had absolutely no problem. I am only speculating, but am guessing there was something wrong with the cryo cycle your cables went through. I've also cryoed two DVD players and two power conditioners (both Inouye SLC's). Both DVD players (a Toshiba and a Cyberhome) came through perfectly, although I do have a stress crack on the faceplate of the Cyberhome which may have been caused by me overtightening screws when I got the unit back. I cryoed one line conditioner first to see how it would take the process and it came through perfectly. The 2nd had some fairly serious cracking on MOV's within the unit, which I was initially very nervous about. The damage to the MOV's, however, seems to have had no detrimental effect on the conditioner. Interestingly, the two conditioners were manufactured at different times (I acquired them used for a song) and the MOV's were, in fact, different, which may explain why the cracking occurred on the 2nd unit and not the first. My cryo vendor offered to compensate for repair of the unit, but I declined as it seems to work fine and I really don't have much invested in it. With the damage sustained to your cables, I would think that the cryo vendor should particapate, to some extent, in making things right, particularly if he has stated that there have not been problems with other similar cables (and my experience is that there should not be).
I would say that cryoing the cabling in my system has been a great success and would highly recommend it to anyone. Both line conditioners benefited greatly as well and the Cyberhome was, in my opinion, really transformed by the cryo. Interestingly, the Toshiba, from my perspective, did not seem to benefit from it, and another audiophile from Toronto who had some Toshiba boards done recently told me he preferred the non-cryoed version of the Toshiba. So, I suppose the moral of the story is that, at least with respect to components, cryo may not be universally good.
The beauty of the Cyberhome, for anyone that is interested, is that it can be had at Walmart for about $40 plus another $20 to cryo it, so you are not out much money. In the past, I've owned Arcam and Cambridge Audio players and the cryoed and moderately tweaked Cyberhome is a far superior player that I don't beleive would be embarassed by players costing 10-20X what I have invested in it.
