Mystery of day to day changes in sound quality.

[Arkless Electronics]

Google is your friend

[topoxforddoc]

What the fuck are psychoacoustics?

It's how your surroundings and brain influences how you hear things. The environment and how you feel can alter sensory perception and experience. The classic example (to do with taste rather than hearing) is when wonderful bottle of wine, which tastes great on holiday, but cr*p when you bring a bottle home. The holiday experience, sun, nice scenery, time away form work etc all helps to create a good experience, which enhances how the wine tastes.

[Justjon]

Thanks
So basically, frame of mind?

[Jimbo]

Yep there is certainly a change day to day with equipment due to temperature and humidity, speakers don't like hot environments to sound their best and cartridges definitely change.

However the biggest influence is mains supply, we have a magic few hours from 9.00PM onwards as the noise floor drops.

I also think your hearing changes day to day, mine certainly does depending on how much sinus congestion etc I have or ear wax!

Finally there is the psychoacoustic effect where the mind perceives music and sound differently depending on mood, drugs and booze!

[Arkless Electronics]

Think of how optical illusions can fool the eye.. or not... It's actually not so much the eye but how our brain perceives the information from our eyes and either sees the illusion or just lots of coloured dots. Some people will see the illusion and some may not.. also you may eventually "get" it and then always see it. Sometimes you may be a in a frame of mind where you "get it" straight away and at other times you don't... I'm no "ologist" in whatever it is and this is just ideas but I'm guessing something similar must happen with our ear/brain/environment. Studying this would be one aspect of the subject known as psychoacoustics.. if I'm interpreting it OK!

[karma67]

i get it with my turntable,i spend a few hrs setting it up and get it spot on and sounding sweet as,stick it on a few days later and its like its gone out of alignment,i used to set it up all over again,now i just think,oh well it will be fine again in a few days

[JohnJo]

AC mains filtering and regeneration sorted out most of the inconsistencies in my system and it sounds pretty much the same 24/7 now. Before that it varied depending on the time of day and day of the week, quite probably depending on a few key neighbours using specific cheap/foreign/knackered electrical equipment at certain times.

Yes, I've plainly noticed it and I've always put it down to mains quality.

I suspect if there are a lot of renewables on the grid, solar and wind turbines in particular which are unsynchronous and use inverters there will be a lot more voltage distortion in the incoming electrical supply to the house as well as frequency movement.

Windy day might be a bad sound day!

[Audio Al]

What days of the week do you clean your ears out ?

[Barry]

My system sounds the same, day in day out. But the choice of what I listen to may not always be a good choice, so I will change it after only a track or two for something better.

A glass of wine or a brandy often helps!

[Macca]

Being in a noisy environment before you start listening can be a cause. I've had that happen to me as I've related before. System 'magically' gets better an hour or so into listening.

Some times I agree it seems inexplicable. I don't think it is mood since I only listen to music when I am in the mood, I don't try to force it. I've not had an inexplicable case of poor sound in a long time now.

If we are talking soundstaging and imaging in terms of good and poor sound that can be due to how much attention you are paying. The brain can help out if you make the effort. Of course you do get some really good systems that just do the holographic thing without you having to pay extra attention. It is just 'there'. But they are few and far between.

Lighting helps too. Or lack of it. I get a better sound in the Winter when it is dark out, curtains shut, lights down low.