DISCUSSION: "It only comes out at night". Does anyone else have this experience!?


In my listening experience, whatever system you have, whatever components, whatever the material, medium, one thing always seems to remain constant. It ALWAYS sounds better in the deep and still of the night!!!

 

Is it because night time is generally quieter? Is it because the world of electronics is then shielded from the SUN? Is it because there is less demand on the electrical service?

 

Whatever it is, there is one thing I know for sure, music sounds better late into the night!

kmckenn

I’m jealous of everyone that listens into the wee hours. Waking up at 3:30 a.m for work each day I can barely stay up until 8:00 p.m. Lucky! 

Those who've mentioned snow are on to something, snow is insulator. I have crawl space under house,  snow piled up around house, storms on windows down, very little traffic due to snow, no wind, night. This is the absolute very best ambient noise situation for me. The greater dynamic range recordings are most affected by ambient noise floor, quiet passages are absolutely ruined during day, the amount of low level info heard during these quiet passages makes all the difference. Classical music comes alive for me, can't hear all the nuance during high ambient noise times. If one only listens to loudness wars, no dynamic range recordings doesn't make any difference. I have neighbor only listens during day, heavy metal all the time, likely over 100db in his room, ambient noise sure doesn't bother him!

Steve Deckert at DECWARE wrote a newsletter a while back and stated that speakers do not sound optimally until they have been running a minimum of 30 minutes....this allows the coils to heat up and expand...I never heard this before. I always let my tubes heat up before playing but the speakers needing to heat up....Hmmmm.....It's true. Try it....

As long as I'm good and buzzed, it sounds great to me ANY time of day or night!! 😁

I worked at a plant that used 20 megawatts power.  We would use a transformer and run 480V through the plant.  We would see spikes of 600V.  So yes, our grid is not a smooth thing.  Air conditioners are notorious for ground faults.  Dirt in circuits causes "tracking".  You have to have an ultrasonic listening device to hear it.  Variable frequency drives put out very dirty power.  So if one plant does this, think about the community as a whole..  I would go with the difference in the grid as to why your system sounds better.  Surprised someone hasnt come up with a cleaning and regulating device, or I just don't know about it.