After a long day at work I sit down to listen to my stereo and behold the seas part and yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus the Stereo Gods have granted me a rare evening of audiophile heaven but now I ask you why cant I stay in this state of rapture as the following day at the same time listening to the same music the seas refuse to part and Im here in a state of disbelief. Can anyone tell me why its so hard to stay in that elusive zone? Explanations appreciated.
The Stereo Gods giveth... and the Stereo Gods taketh away.
They are giving you as sign. They are telling you to visit the nearest high priest - your local dealer - and make a suitable offering, in the form of an expensive purchase.
Do this, you will surely find favor in the eyes of the Stereo Gods once again.
Has my attempt at humor been that bad? Perhaps. Want to take time to thank the High Priest Duke for his comments and to the rest of you surely you can explain to me why one day your stereo sounds great and the following day your wondering what happened.Comments appreciated.
This happens to me frequently. I chalk it up to my mood which I'm not even conscious of. Although, I do seem to have a better experience on those days when I'm anticipating a good session. I don't believe it has anything to do with my equipment, power source or any other technical explanation.
As others suggest, tt could be psychoacoustic, in other words, your state of mind changing from one listening session to another. Do you have dedicated lines? It could also be that you need to get dedicated lines to improve and make more stable the AC connected to your system. Personally, I've seen profound differences in the sound of my speakers based on any change to the AC powering the system.
It's hard to believe, but my system sounds the same every time I sit and listen. I live out in the country with zero industies in the whole county. I'm the only house hooked to the transformer and I have two dedicated lines. The dedicated lines where an amazing difference. Even separating the digital from the anolog when I put the second dedicated line in was quit a large difference. I'm not in the same mood everytime I listen, but the sound is the same. I'm a firm believer in power coloration and addressing the issue. Power conditioners are a wonderful tool to help in this area. I also don't want to sidestep the fact that the humor factor was way up there. Needfreestuff was very funny in bringing us into the issue. But Audiokinesis brought a instant laugh as soon as I read the first line. Well done.
The difference in sound quality that you hear from day to day may not be psychological as another poster suggested . I used to have the same problem and felt the difference was to great to be a matter of state of mind ect . I attributed it to inconsistencies with incoming power . Upgrading to a top notch conditioner seemed to give me consistent sonic qualities . I haven't heard such anomalies since .
Nice topic, state of mind and current emotional factors do have an affect it would seem. I agree with others above who mentioned good power conditiners. Since using a balanced-power isolation transformer the past 3 yearsthe sound is always very high quality without deviations.
Tpreaves, if my system sounded different from time to time, I would say so.. In your responce, you have pretty much called me a liar! Think what you want, but a system with very stable power will be stable.
No it's not your mind. It has been happening to me for the last few weeks whereas it rarely did during the previous 25 years. They have coincidentally upgraded the power lines in my street during this time but nothing visibly being done over the last week or so and yet......one day I get magic....and the next day......bananas! I'm loath to put conditioning in but if this keeps going like this for much longer?..............
I used to think this phenomenon was due to the state of mind I was in while listening until, that is, I had an interesting experience. One evening I had a friend over and we were listening to several different recordings and the system sounded sublime, neither one of us however mentioned anything about it at the time. Several days later the same friend came over and we listened to the system some more and the majority of what we listened to were the exact same recordings as we had listened to the previous session. Right from the start of this second session I felt that the system wasn't sounding very good,at all, and I chalked it up to my frame of mind, but about an hour into the session my friend without any provocation whatsoever suddenly says, "Why doesn't this sound anywhere near as good as the other night?" I was floored, so I asked him what he meant, he said" Well, the other night with this same recoding and all of the others we listened to your system sounded unbelievably good, and now tonight with the same recordings it sounds flat and lifeless, sterile and cold, un-involving." I proceeded to tell him that I had heard the exact same thing on both occassions and he was shocked. It opened up my eyes and my mind to the possibility that there was definitely something more than just psycho acoustics at play here.
Maybe it's time for an extra-audiophile affair, that is, have another audio system that is newer and sexier in sound, and will bring back the audio excitement and climax that you long for....:-)
Another vote here for power issues or something other than the mind. The difference in sound qualty was just too drastic in my case to be in my mind set. Things turned for the better once I introduced my power conditioner into my system.
It's your interconnects degrading over time from consistency. If you work out you'll understand the concept of not working one part of your body every day. Stereo's, specifically interconnects, require "exercise" at different times, volumes and musical styles. What you're experiencing is interconnect atrophy.
Well after reading the responses I have to qualify my statement. There are times when the music just isn't as engaging. Not saying the system sounds worse, just that my level of interest isn't as high. On those occasions I wouldn't have the interest to listen for changes. How many of you listen intently every time you sit down? That's another thread I suppose.
There is undoubtedly truth in all the replies. I have personally seen tremendous differences in how engaging music was that were ultimately attributable to variations in power quality... so I suppose I must throw my offering to the stereo gods into that pile rather than psychoacoustics.
Good or bad mood going into it, music typically re-frames my perspective. That's a big part of why I think we are here. If instead my mood purely dictated my emotional response to music, I would likely listen a lot less...
Dedicated lines and well-thought out power solutions have really helped many 'goners who listen in crowded population areas to experience greater consistency; your recent experiences may be a sign to look further down that path perhaps
I say again Needfreestuff, I believe it's inconsistency in the quality of the AC powering your audio system that accounts for the alternating sound quality. Remember when the experts said the CD player was "perfect sound forever." Of course they were wrong. But, that makes me think, if only we all had "perfect AC forever." What a difference that would make in the sound quality we all hear from our systems. It would definitely improve the value.
I can remember discussing this topic with some audio friends back in the late '80s. It is certainly not new or an uncommon phenomena. Some of the things we listed as possible causes at the time were: air temperature, humidity, frame of mind, and quality of power coming in. (One buddy had a 1 Farad, that's right 1 Farad capacitor in his basement to filter incoming power. ) We also suspected that sometimes maybe capacitors in the amp/preamp take a set a different way once in a while and can make the music seem dull. (We had mostly tube gear). I have a pretty constant turn on and warm-up routine for my equipment. It sits minimum 1 hour before I play anything. I will wait several hours if the equipment has been off for several weeks.
Alls I can say is WOW you people have touch all the bases cross all the Ts and dotted the Is it seems that a dedicated line is in order and better line conditioning want to take time to thank all the people who responded to this thread especially the ones who gave me the best audiophile sound of all the sounds of laughter so I will leave you now with this one thought... HOW COME MY DOG DONT BARK WHEN YOU COME AROUND...thanks once again and be happy.
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