Listening times

[Filterlab]

I'm just wondering how many of you notice significant changes in your systems depending on the time of the day / week. Certainly mine seems to take longer to 'get going' at the weekends than it does on weekday evenings.

My first thought would be the electricity supply, but then the results using my mains filter and not using my mains filter are inconsistent.

What you say?

[Togil]

I prefer the sound in the early morning.

Late at night I sometimes feel I can hear the plastic coloration of my ESL 's diaphragms.

[Filterlab]

Late at night I sometimes feel I can hear the plastic coloration of my ESL 's diaphragms.

Crikey, that's sensitivity! I've never experienced much colouration with electrostats to be honest regardless of time of day but I can almost hear what you mean when you say "plastic".

What ESLs do you have?

[Togil]

Quad 2805.
Martin Colloms thinks the coloration is due to the display lights circuit which can be switched off; I'm not so sure.

[Neil McCauley]

I'm just wondering how many of you notice significant changes in your systems depending on the time of the day / week. Certainly mine seems to take longer to 'get going' at the weekends than it does on weekday evenings.

My first thought would be the electricity supply, but then the results using my mains filter and not using my mains filter are inconsistent.

What you say?
Having encountered this phenomenon on and off for the past 32 years, at my home and in customer’s homes, I am utterly convinced now that this is not imagination.

In 1980, in discussion with Bob (now Robert – you go figure!) Stuart, one of the most startling intellects I have ever met, he let me into one of his theories on this. Bless him, I guess he took the view that I could only cope with one. He was of course correct in this.

He was utterly convinced that televisions, be they switched on or off in the building would distort the mains supply, causing changes. The intriguing aspect was that (as best I can recall) measurements he had taken demonstrated that even switched off, TVs had a detrimental effect, albeit more subtle than when switched on. His advice in 1980 was that for serious listening, all TVs should have their plugs removed from the wall.

I should emphasise that this was not his only response to the problem. It was just the only one I could grasp.

Moving on though, Max Townshend (another truly remarkable man, albeit in a different way to Mr. Stuart) demonstrated an insidious and as far as he knew totally irremovable effect generated by one’s geographical location, and it had such an effect on me that there and then I gave up reviewing for Hi-Fi News for reasons that will become clear at some point in the future.

It’s quite a story and by coincidence, one I'm writing up for the next issue of the Stereonow e-newsletter – posted in a fortnight or so. If I can get my act together before then (doubtful, given the volume of business currently – for which I'm very grateful) I might be able to post an extract here before then.

One of the privileges of doing the kind of work I do is that from time to time I get to talk to intellects greater than mine. A very refreshing experience it is too.


---//---

[Togil]

Moving on though, Max Townshend (another truly remarkable man, albeit in a different way to Mr. Stuart) demonstrated an insidious and as far as he knew totally irremovable effect generated by one’s geographical location, and it had such an effect on me that there and then I gave up reviewing for Hi-Fi News for reasons that will become clear at some point in the future.




---//---

HiFi Feng Shui ? Should be interesting !

[Neil McCauley]

HiFi Feng Shui ? Should be interesting !
Hmm. Yes, I see. Not quite Feng Shui though. Actually, nothing to do with it at all. And it has nothing to do with the listener's location relative to the system.

[Iain Sinclair]

It's probably my cloth ears, but I've never noticed much variation in sound quality due to time of day. It has more to do with my own mood, in my experience.

[BajaGringo]

My system ALWAYS sounds better in the evening. Especially after a Cadillac Margarita or two.

It's the mood I am in...

:smoking:

[Filterlab]

Moving on though, Max Townshend (another truly remarkable man, albeit in a different way to Mr. Stuart) demonstrated an insidious and as far as he knew totally irremovable effect generated by one’s geographical location, and it had such an effect on me that there and then I gave up reviewing for Hi-Fi News for reasons that will become clear at some point in the future.

Max is definitely a truly remarkable man with a solidly reliable opinion on a great many aspects of hi-fi, he rarely says anything that he hasn't thought long and hard about - the tenacity of a terrier. :) Met him a couple of years back, lovely chap - lives just down the road from me - and an exceptional ability to bring the best out of any component by simply engineering and re-engineering the solution to a problem.

[Neil McCauley]

Max is definitely a truly remarkable man with a solidly reliable opinion on a great many aspects of hi-fi, he rarely says anything that he hasn't thought long and hard about - the tenacity of a terrier. :) Met him a couple of years back, lovely chap - lives just down the road from me - and an exceptional ability to bring the best out of any component by simply engineering and re-engineering the solution to a problem.
A bit of topic drift here, and I hope you’ll forgive me.

Max Townshend as a North Sea oil rig hard-hat.

Max spent a while, he told me, working as a consultant for the Norwegian oil industry trying to solve a problem regarding the disposal of the toxic drilling ‘mud’ which is part of the drilling process. According to Max, this mud is so toxic that on the sea bed around a drilling rig, that nothing or virtually nothing lives there for a radius around 12 Km. Clearly a major problem. He attempted a number of solutions that if I recall correctly would recover the ‘mud’ and incinerate it in some way so that it could be disposed of harmlessly. Had he succeeded, which to his frustration he didn’t, he truly would have made a significant and positive difference to sea bed ecology around the World.


---//---

.

[Mike Reed]

What an interesting and well-written post by HOWARD, though he leaves more questions than answers (but all will be revealed, he says!).

IAIN thinks it's mood rather than mains.

I've grappled with this phenomenon for nigh on thirty years, though this on-colour, off-colour situation hasn't happened to me for some years.

I believe it is mainly the quality, and especially the QUANTITY of mains in periods when more is being drawn. I.E. when people are at home, or there's a larger than normal demand.

I also agree with Iain, that personal mood can have an effect, even when one is not aware.

I also feel that the sound/presentation, though technically faultless, can fail to move the soul because of the relative humidity, or even temperature, of the room. My LP12 often sounded lifeless in the early eighties until I put small troughs of water nearby. This was obviously when the air was dry.

One also gets used to a specific presentation until, eventually, it lacks that 'Je ne sais quoi'; this could well be a human failing or the equipment becoming' sad' and needing a bit of titillation.

However, I do believe, through experience, that the first, and possibly the worst, bete noir can be simply eradicated by having a totally separate mains supply. The fact that it equates to some serious upgrades is just a bonus. Not possible for all, of course, but I really don't think that any amount of expensive filtering or conditioning of household ring mains can hold a candle.

[tfarney]

If by "changes" you mean that sometimes in the evening, the guitar solos in Kid Charlemagne sound less that freaking brilliant, you're just tired. If you're talking about changes in the fidelity of your system, look around you...no, over here...see? Walk toward the light. :smoking:

Tim