Do the Audio gods shine upon you?

It's your hearing. Varying sound levels and intensity or exposure during the day will alter your hearing sensitivity. Some days we get more exposure than others and the music doesn't sound as good. Our hearing recovers after a days dose but not totally and not right away. The evening is the worst time to do critical listening. The clinical term for this condition is TTS or Temporary Threashold Shift and can occur after a loud event or prolonged exposure to moderately high sound levels. The current federal standard for noise exposure in the work place will not protect you from the degrading effects TTS ie. relative to your desire to enjoy music. Regulations are designed for something very different, speech recognition. You can get TTS even if you work in a relatively quiet environment. Driving a car for example exposes us to levels of 100 dB or more at low frequencies which are most damaging. Over long periods TTS moves to permanant hearing loss. A loud rock concert gives a profound example of temporary threashold shift. The best time to listen to your HiFi is in the morning, before the day starts. Try it and see if your sound system doesn't show a radical improvement. Unfortunately, after many years of exposure to noise our hearing is not what it used to be. Variability in hearing on a daily basis is also related on a lesser degree to sinus conditions, colds, trama and nutrition. What you described in your post is perfectly normal and why so many audiophiles get so confused about what is good sound, great sound and awsome sound. And why some of them like BOSE from time to time.

Khrys, If you don't believe in hearing degregation with exposure, how do you explain hearing loss in the general population as we age? Current thinking has it that age related hearing loss is caused by exposure to sound largely as the result of our industrialized lifestyle. It has been documented that remote African and South American natives who live away from the industrial noise generators of our society, do not show a drop in hearing sensitivity with age. I'm not suggesting ambient exposure is the only factor, only that is one of the primary factors. As to your comment about not caring about what noise you are exposed to, it's your choice. If you're not prepared to treat your ears with some care, you will end up a very very unhappy audiophile, unable to appreciate even BOSE. I suspect Khrys has abused himself and wants others to go along with the notion that exposure to vacuum cleaners, driving witht he window down, talking on a cell phone, listining to highly amplified music, riding a motorcycle, screaming at a football game ....on and on... will not injure you. As our gift to the world of logic, Khrys is invincible. He's known this since the age of 20 when he attended an Emerson Lake and Palmer concert and submitted to the quad towers of 100,000 watts each pouring the healing gospel upon his waiting soul. He resurects the memory each day on the way to work by cranking the big 10" in his car until the trunk started to leak. (he has since switched to the head set ear phones). He does it because he can, it's his right and don't mess with it. Khrys is our kind of audiophile. Like a Hebrew judge, what's right is right and wrong is wrong. I only have on question for you Khrys. "If she said yes, would you be able to hear"? Oops now I've hit on something important.