The Midnight Effect - Who-How?
You have high end equipment designed in a way to make it seemingly impervious to power line fluctuations. You add expensive conditioners and/or power line regenerators just to be safe.
You sit and listen to your system for a few hours and everything sounds great. Then, from nowhere, like someone flicked a switch…. the sound opens up… becomes more natural, more focused… the soundstage suddenly blooms and becomes more dimensional, more depth and more space around instruments. WTF just happened? The only clue is the clock on the wall and the empty wine flagon next to your chair.
I’m long past questioning whether the phenomenon is real. To what extent it exists depends on certain variables, but it exists. But how? I live in the boondocks, there’s no industry or commerce that suddenly shuts down at 23:00 every night.
Do others experience this? Do you have an explanation? Perhaps even some empirical data?
Is it just the booze?
That is completely false. In fact, broadcasters are required to maintain xmitter output to within 90 to 105 percent of authorized power output at all times. There are some AM stations that are required to reduce power at night, and of course there are still some "daytimers" on the AM band. |
I'm just trying to picture a flagon and a clock in the same setting. The Middle Ages called...they want their wine vessel back. he he Just teasing...I couldn't let the opportunity go by as you maybe never see that term used. But the imagery is cool!! To eliminate flukes and misperceptions, repeat it. So, is this a consistent phenomenon? Does it happen every time the circumstances are the same? |
@cleeds This is from FCC website: |
@rooze - it was always an audiophile "truth" that systems sounded better at night when there was less demand on the grid. It does make some sense to me since you are essentially playing your power supplies with amplifiers and those in turn depend on what’s coming out of the wall receptacles. I installed a very robust electrical "subsystem" for my main system (which ties back to the main household ground) and uses a large iso-transformer. I have fewer electrical anomalies here in Central Texas than I did in a small village along the Hudson in NY. I attributed a lot of that to newer infrastructure, despite the fact that I’m virtually "in town" rather than out in the country. But, having said all that, when the temps here reach 110F in the summer (and we can have 60+ days of over 100 degree heat) I simply don’t use the main system much. We receive warnings about the grid being "iffy"- and it puts me off. PS: As to the regenerators, I have no idea. I heard early iterations of those, but never lived with them. PPS: I took a quick look at the PS Audio forum and there seems to be some suggestion that its regenerators are still susceptible to certain forms of noise. One user, John H, was a frequent contributor to those discussions.
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