Do the Audio gods shine upon you?

My wife has cast her vote. She says I am nuts, come on, help me out guys!

Slowhand: I experience changes for good (and bad) quite often as I live in LA where the juice is quite iffy at times. Right now the system sounds smoother, but with less detail and my computer keeps crashing. I assume that it because of continuous Brown Outs but won't know until I drop the CPU off at the shop. I may have to end up getting a voltage regulator or external power supply for the computer if this is the case. I use a cheap power conditioner for the main stereo, but it does nothing for low amperage. By the way, I have been certified as "sane" within the past six months.

No bull Slowhand, I experience this phenomenon pretty often too. In my case, I attribute it simply to "mood". Guys don't typically like to talk about such things, preferring to attribute changes to all sorts of other things such as cables, ICs, vibration, power supply, acoustics, humidity, maybe even the cat in the room, but not simply "mood". Your mood at listening time is just as real and as important-- maybe moreso than all the other physical things we can all come up with-- mood is just as real as any other part of your stereo system. BTW, I've got a CD I like called "Mood Food", by a group called "Mood Swings"-- sort of new agey with prominent, but soft percussion throughout. Just let it happen, and enjoy Slowhand. Another way of putting this is that "some days are better than other days". Ever try to listen when you're seriously ticked off? had a fight with the wife? someone ran over your dog? just got a huge raise at work? have a wicked headache? just got fired? just go laid? Sometimes music can make you feel better, and sometimes worse-- just all depends on the mood of the music gods. But do clean all your ICs, cables etc-- sometimes your system will really sound better, and sometimes you will just feel better about it anyway etc. etc. Cheers. Craig.

I came across exactly the same thing this week. On popped a few CD's and wow. At first I was listening to some new stuff I hadn't heard before and thought it was maybe down to that but no..even familar stuff sounded better--however I had just got up and the room was very cold--could be partly down to that I suppose. But I do subscribe to the theory that my system is variable with no obvious reason both good and bad. As a guy who works shifts I find it quite common for my system to sound better in the afternoon--possibly down to the mains not having as much use/pollution? Not sure... of course this hobby is obsessive so a little bit of madness is a healthy by-product. Of course I get it the other way too when I can't work out why the &*^% my system is sounding worse. If somebody wants to start a new religion and possibly sell me some small Audio God statues then I'm in.....ah Sonus god of soundstage..Deepo god of bass...Solvo god of resolution..Iden god of detail...Choco and Shoppo gods of keeping girlfriend happy....let's face it we've probably wasted money on worse tweaks.

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.