Have you ever hated the sound of your system one day, and loved it the next?

stevizzy
Last evening the world outside my home was silent with 12” of freshly fallen heavy snow. It was so quiet 🤫 I could hear my breath freezing. The evening was audio magic so I stayed up until 3:00AM listening to recordings that never sounded so good.

>>>>>OK, The snow has stopped and melted most places. Did the audio magic disappear with the snow? Did you psych yourself out? You could hear your breath freezing? Were you sitting outside?

If you have trouble or pain in your ears on airplane flights, as I do, it may be you. (Us?)
Sometimes my tiny Eustachian tubes close up and my auditory system is transformed from bass reflex to acoustic reflex. Things sound indistinct. Sometimes I can clear it up by swallowing hard a few times. 

But I imagine I am in the minority.

Long answer short - at times my system amazes me, once in a while it sounds a bit blah, mostly it is very, very good.

2channel8,

 I think you have something there about Eustachian tubes,
I have problems on airplane flights too. When my set sounds unbalanced, I pinch my nose and blow, and it clears up the imbalance.  This tip was given to me by my ear doctor.

I completely agree with  onhwy61, there are may factors that influence our ability to hear, especially after 45/50, just an extra glass of wine may make a noticeable difference...

You may want to read Winter Blues for some of the reasons why properly function system can vary. Home HiFi is way more variable than most think.

An additional variable people seldom consider is the playback level. Some program has a level at which it is just right. A db or two either side and it's not. I've been noting optimum level on the jacket for a very long time.

Thank the good Lord in Heaven ...I'm NOT alone.

An additional variable people seldom consider is the playback level.Some program has a level at which it is just right. A db or two either side and it's not.

+1

In fact, I'd go further to state that *all* program has a level at which it is just right. 

+1 ieales and gdhal
That's what I seem to like. A level that is just right, seems to be the most natural sounding to me.

Lots and lost and lots of "just opinion" posted here
A couple of actual experiences may help. I have friends in areas of "variable" electricity supply, in that different generators click in at different times of the day.  The quality of electricity varies substantially and DOES affect the sound quality, regardless of conditioners. 
Sorry to mess up this thread by reality chaps.

+1 ieales

except that the “properly functioning system” although representative of the majority of “Hi-Fi” is NOT at all high fidelity if all these extraneous factors audibly affect the sound. It is possible to find electronics equipment that is not weather dependent and speakers that don’t change drastically due to voice coil temperatures - of course few folks here are interested in that kind of performance as it would spoil all the ludicrous fun with fuses and ordinary bits of wire (for which audible changes are generally chalked up to - instead of the real culprit which is the poorly designed component equipment which rarely sounds the same twice)

+1 ieales

It's even more annoying when each song on an album needs a different level. 

Uh, chaps, level is one of things you CAN control. It is not what this thread is about, which is why the system oft sounds different day to day for NO APPARENT REASON. It’s a mystery. Level has nothing to do with it. Weather affects the power grid, thus even high end designer electronics, which apparently you chaps are completely unfamiliar with, one must conclude at least, are subject to the vagaries of the weather.

Pop quiz: has anyone who’s paying attention noticed his system sounds really good for no apparent reason the past few days?

Notwithstanding my point that you should concentrate on the music, not the sound, there is no doubt that the quality of the sound can vary from day to day.  And that difference can be significant! 
Right now I’m listening to a CD (Shostakovich’s 8th Symphony with Gergiev conducting) which sounded dull and lifeless a few days ago. Today it’s blowing my socks off!
The trick is not to let that bother you so much that you can’t get past it and hear the music. This can be difficult with very dynamic music.

Bingo! That’s what I’ve been waiting for! 4 days ago I indicated something wonderful was coming in a deleted post. A bit like Babe Ruth pointing to the bleachers prior to smacking a 500 ft. Home Run. ⚾️ It’s always good when someone actually can hear.

Yes. In my case it happened because I went away and turned everything off. I came back, and for the next day was wondering what had gone wrong. 

Of course, this also happens from changing room acoustic conditions. 

Best,

E

Obviously that’s not (rpt not) what I’m talking about. I’m talking about something that YOU have no control over. But like level that was mentioned earlier you DO control turning OFF and ON as well as Room Tuning. I’m talking about something only I know about. I am the controller. That would make it mysterious for everyone else, no? 😳

You must not play golf
 If you did you would understand.    Humidity ,
 Sun,  did the wife piss you off. The  Wine on & on 

The wine you can control. Ideally. 🙄 Wife, probably not. Uncontrolled variable.

Adjusting level is not actually so mysterious, ever since the loudness wars started you never know what you’re going to get in terms of loudness level, so obviously you’ll usually have to adjust the level, either up or down. It would be rather unlikely in this day and age two consecutive CDs would have the exact same level, don’t you think?

I thought I was the only one who felt that way.  Despite top end gear, I was never fully satisfied.  I thought it might even be crap cables.  Then I discovered that single malt scotch improves audio quality.  Cognac elevates it to the sublime.

 I’ll stay with the single malt Scotch.

Famous last words. On his death bed Humphrey Bogart reportedly remarked, I never should have switched from Scotch to martinis. 😜

Well, if it's going to be Scotch, let me suggest Auchentoshan Three Wood.  A lowland single-malt aged in two kinds of sherry, as well as bourbon casks.  If you have reservations about the sound of your system, this will remedy any anxiety.  It makes Bose sound good.

Auchentoshan?

Geshunheit!

Are we talking about the $40, $140, or $600 bottle?

I might try the $40 bottle.

I know I've seen this thread before............omg and lol and deja vu and et tu Brute'
                         but to the topic it wouldn't be love/hate but
definitely some days are better than others
                          and to weather related influences I think things
sound best in snow, a soft and fluffy downy cover of snow 

A vote for mesmerizing snow, from a similar experience. Less than a foot, but the music was intensely holographic - a palpable presence that startled and beckoned in the night. It wasn't until the following day that I learned the power had gone out from the storm...

cheers to the scotch drinkers.....sounds yummy. I haven't strayed far from Jack Daniels and then only on occasion, and if I had to choose 
would go with the smokiness of smoke itself when listening to music
or the birds in the yard......can't afford the good stuff out here on the east coast, but it's all good out west.....contemplated a move to Portland after a summer vacation stop into my first legal shop there.
My oh my what nicely trimmed buds and so affordable.......
     For me the green does wonders for the senses....aural,visual etc.

Yes, absolutely - I have this experience often. Haven't read through all these responses yet, so maybe someone already said this, but one factor you might not be taking into consideration are the fluctuations of your actual ears. According to an audiologist I once saw (I was a drummer subjected to loud noises regularly, and needed to have custom earplugs made), there are muscles in your ear that expand and contract to protect your inner ear from loud noise. I would guess if you were tense, or your ears were tensed, you might be essentially muffling your inner ear somewhat, or preventing it from being receptive to the sound coming in. Maybe in the morning you are relaxed and in the night you are worried. Or some variation of that. Sounds hokey, but I always consider this. 

Keep a log. That way you have some chance, albeit a small one, of correlating what you hear from day to day, week to week, month to month to something, anything. Moving this, changing that, replacing that, time of day, whatever. Unfortunately, and I say this with the utmost sincerity, you won’t be able to correlate the sound to things you don’t know about or things that are not usually thought to have any influence whatsoever on the sound, that you would never suspect.

Made the scene
Week to week
Day to day
Hour to hour
The gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side

Okay, this is ridiculous!
Notwithstanding all that has been written here, today my system is sounding like it NEVER sounded before.  All the parameters of sound are way better.
Is it electrical? Who the f@#$ knows?!

Its enough to drive you totally insane.

rvpiano OP
Okay, this is ridiculous!
Notwithstanding all that has been written here, today my system is sounding like it NEVER sounded before. All the parameters of sound are way better.
Is it electrical? Who the f@#$ knows?!

Its enough to drive you totally insane.

>>>>>This is precisely why I say it’s a good idea to keep a log. That way you have some chance of correlating the sound you’re hearing on a particular day with something that could be affecting it. You know, like time of day, day of week, the weather, sun spot activity. Whatever. 

geoffkait,

In desperation, I may try a log.  Anything to make sense of this chaos.
The  syststem has been sounding blah for a long while, then, all of a sudden, today it sounds like gangbusters.
I had given up.  There’s gotta be some way to make sense of it.

Maybe sunspots!

We all have good and bad recordings and it should be considered a crime the way some of these studios use inferior devices and wiring in an attempt to make a good recording which is virtually impossible. We need more recording studios dedicated and properly equipped to make the best possible recordings.

Happened to me last night!
Usually when I first play a track on my system (Upgraded Di's and Vincent SV-237MK) I'm in awe. Had such a session on Friday night. It was an evening of bliss. (Wife was away and I played as loud as I wanted to and for as long as I wanted to.) Saturday night, I just couldn't get the same. (Yes, wife was still away. :o) After playing a number of tracks, I realized that maybe it's the recordings. So, I went back to some tried and true tracks, but still was not what I experienced the previous evening. I think by then my ears were "ruined." Definitely two vastly different experiences from one night to the other.

Like you, the problem for me is my ears get “ruined” too, and that carries over to the next listening session or until I hear something really good again.

It takes tremendous discipline to allow your brain to reject a reset.

I suspect big complicated systems are more sensitive to external pressures. A friend of mine has a big complicated system and will generally only listen to his system early Sunday mornings, and then only on nice sunny 😎 days. The rest of the week by comparison his system sounds relatively lifeless, uncertain, generic, unfocused, flaccid, unengaging, wimpy, electronic, bloated, two dimensional, like paper mache.

Any chance our systems sound better on nice sunny days because less people are in their homes sucking power from the grid?  More unrestrained clean power getting into your system?   Could be systems sound better late at night or early mornings when people on your power grid are sleeping and not drawing power.  

It’s a common  phenomenon that certain times of the day there is a greater demand from the power grid and early morning and late evenings there are sonic differences because there is generally less demand. So during peak demands we find the age old saying, Garbage in garbage out.
some power conditioners do a better job than others do but I don’t have the experience to tell you which is better than the other! 

durkin
I joined a Facebook group called tube rolling and have just started playing around with different tubes and have found a vast difference.
i also made an investment in something called Total Contact by a company called 
Perfect Parh Tecnologies and the results have just blown me away!!!!!

yea! it wasn't broken in and than next day OMG!

I think the biggest difference is YOU. Depending on how much dopamine you have floating around up there at any given time can influence what you are hearing tremendously.
I think the time of day/pressure/humidity/weather can play a role, but not as much as above.

Often. It is a holistic issue involving different levels of water intake, daily life experience, media format, speaker position, chair position, humidity, how many things are on my mind, what I had for my meals, first/last CD or LP chosen that day, etc. etc. etc. could it be my electricity? Sure, that too.

Often I will just find that LPs don’t sound good, or CDs don’t sound good. Rarely it is both not sounding good. Perfection is when both sound good equally. 

It is is important to both quantify and qualify/externalize and internalize our audio experiences. But we should never take it too seriously—unless it is our profession. If it isn’t your profession, I think it a good idea to turn it off and go for a walk. 

Excellent post!