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"But it sounds better at night...."

A well-traveled topic that I raise yet again.  On the "are power regenerators snake oil" question, the response that has made most sense to me is: No, if you have some material issue with the power supply coming into your home.  If you live in an area with what I will call normal modern power infrastructure, and have quality components, you will probably not notice a difference.

But I live in a city, do not suspect any power problems, and feel with a pretty high degree of certainty that my system sounds better at night.  This is a common sentiment, attributed to more activity on the electrical grid during the day.  Can these two positions be reconciled?  Why DOES the system sound better at night to me and many others?


Is our perception straight-up wrong, and the result of some bias or non-auditory reason why listening at night is a better experience?

Maybe when listening at night, one average for most people, the system will have been on longer, and therefore be more warmed up?

Is our perception real, and supports the proposition that baseline electrical system usage does materially affect many systems, and you don't need a clear power "problem" to benefit from a regenerator? 

Let's rehash it all again gentlemen!
 

mathiasmingus
mbmi's avatar
mbmi
572 posts
 

Definitely sounds better at night because most of us don't "drink" during the day!

erik_squires
16,119 posts
 

I have definitely heard my system sound worse without a Furman than with it.  Adding a voltage regulator and I really don't have those issues anymore, in the city around "noisy neighbors" or in the burbs with the two different zones of heating and air competing for current.

ccogopher
26 posts
 

I never listen during the day because my brain is too active. I can’t back this up with a scientifically based argument but I put it down to brain chemistry and circadian rhythm. There are less distractions at night.. also daylight is stimulating, along with the squirrels running across my roof, the dogs entering my room every 15 minutes, text messages, UPS FedEx Amazon noisy neighbors….. come to think of it, a serious/enjoyable listening session during the day is really rare. Lastly, I always audition a new piece of equipment at night.

deadhead1000's avatar
deadhead1000
714 posts
 

@macg19 

Yep.

 

kdogsy
23 posts
 

I notice that sometimes things just seem to click into place more than other times and I guess it happens to be in the evening more often than not. 
I feel like I have a pretty nice system but have avoided spending huge amounts on cabling and power conditioning. 
If a noisy power supply is causing inconsistencies in system performance how would I best go about remedying/testing that?. Like how much do you need to spend to get clean power going to your system?. 

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