Mood

Great topic you teed up. Some days my system sounds awesome and some days it  doesn't quite get there. As noted above, "ear lube" helps my system and "swing lube" helps my golf game.  I embrace lubricants for a variety of enhancements in my life.  At any rate, the vicissitudes in the sound of one's system, day to day, is a matter that resides between one's two ears, I think.

@whitestix 

 I embrace lubricants for a variety of enhancements in my life

Careful you don't slip and crash into a speaker or land face down on top of a hot tube amp! 

@noromance 

I don't want to hijack this thread so I will PM you. 

A trap that we fall into is thinking a bad sounding track is the fault of our system.

Accept the fact that there are bad sounding sources and that not all sources are created equal.

@asctim

I am fortunate in not having wide mood swings and/or in not having them effect how music sounds to me. But I have no musical skill in hearing or performance… none, whatso ever. When in high school my best friend was getting into guitars… I kept trying to play. I could not tune a guitar. I could play with a single string and never tell when it was in tune with the others. If someone was playing a guitar, I could tell if it was not tuned… but that was it. I have no skill or talent in creating any kind of music.

It has been said music is like a condiment.