Does Everything Make a Difference?

[Tuckers]

I definitely hear my system differently when I am hosting another audiophile. I don't think it's their mass , but somehow I hear it through their ears more. For instance, I will hear negative aspects I never heard when listening with someone and they will comment on these things too. This has happened time and time again. Apart from visual cues, I think there is some kind of neural link that happens! Not that I can describe this or understand it. Although it sounds like so much WOO, its been a repeatable experience for me.

 

[PYP]

I definitely hear my system differently when I am hosting another audiophile. I don't think it's their mass , but somehow I hear it through their ears more. For instance, I will hear negative aspects I never heard when listening with someone and they will comment on these things too. This has happened time and time again. Apart from visual cues, I think there is some kind of neural link that happens! Not that I can describe this or understand it. Although it sounds like so much WOO, its been a repeatable experience for me.

suggest you listen with a feline instead. no judgement. Except during break-in. When our feline runs through and past the listening room, I'm usually in despair about the bad sound from break-in (we both dislike frequencies out of balance). When we both settle down (and my wife stops asking me to turn down the volume), it is a good sign that break-in is complete.

 

[Tuckers]

When I had my cat she would roll around and meow near the speakers when good sounding violin music was playing

 

[Geoffkait]

I definitely hear my system differently when I am hosting another audiophile. I don't think it's their mass , but somehow I hear it through their ears more. For instance, I will hear negative aspects I never heard when listening with someone and they will comment on these things too. This has happened time and time again. Apart from visual cues, I think there is some kind of neural link that happens! Not that I can describe this or understand it. Although it sounds like so much WOO, its been a repeatable experience for me.

It could very well be something as “ordinary” as your audiophile visitor brings his watch and or cellphone with him into the room. Watches and clocks have the peculiar effect of degrading the sound. As I stated previously somewhere watches and clocks in rooms at big HiFi shows are one very big reason the sound usually sucks. I wrote a paper on it with Peter Belt, it wasn’t that long ago.

Best to have visitors check them in at the door. Experiment: take all watches, clocks and cellphones to another room and listen again. Then bring them back into the room. Ugh, right?

 

[Geoffkait]

yesterday, for a while the setup wasn't sounding very good. I noticed that there was a lot of static when I touched metal objects. Last night it was sounding more normal. Today it rained and the sound is wonderful.

Did the rain affect both the setup and my mood? How can you separate these? We are the last variable in any hifi system.

The best conditions IMO for listening are high pressure, sunny and high humidity. The best times to listen are early in the morning and very late at night. The best day/time is Sunday morning. Of course, there are many other variables so that makes it a little more difficult to lay blame.

 

[PYP]

The best conditions IMO for listening are high pressure, sunny and high humidity. The best times to listen are early in the morning and very late at night. The best day/time is Sunday morning. Of course, there are many other variables so that makes it a little more difficult to lay blame.

after the right amount of exercise (not too little or too much), with natural cannabinoids circulating in the body, listening is very enjoyable. Basically, the greater the relaxation the better the sound (for me). In a relaxed state, even a car radio can be enjoyed. And the limited frequency range always provides a new perspective of the song.

 

[wil]

after the right amount of exercise (not too little or too much), with natural cannabinoids circulating in the body, listening is very enjoyable. Basically, the greater the relaxation the better the sound (for me). In a relaxed state, even a car radio can be enjoyed. And the limited frequency range always provides a new perspective of the song.

Often in early morning, the system seems to have an extra degree of quiet (aka lower noise floor floor?).

The question I’ve been unable to answer:
Is this due to better power from the mains at 5am?
Or is it because my hearing and mind are a fresh slate first thing in the morning?
Or perhaps a combination of these two factors?

 

[Lee]

Often in early morning, the system seems to have an extra degree of quiet (aka lower noise floor floor?).

The question I’ve been unable to answer:
Is this due to better power from the mains at 5am?
Or is it because my hearing and mind are a fresh slate first thing in the morning?
Or perhaps a combination of these two factors?

My guess is both.

 

[Geoffkait]

Often in early morning, the system seems to have an extra degree of quiet (aka lower noise floor floor?).

The question I’ve been unable to answer:
Is this due to better power from the mains at 5am?
Or is it because my hearing and mind are a fresh slate first thing in the morning?
Or perhaps a combination of these two factors?

Less automobiles, trucks and buses and subways, trains on the road/tracks so less extremely low freq. vibration. More humid when it’s cooler in the morning. As the day heats up humidity generally goes down. Also less microwave activity, other RF sources. But if the room temperature was significantly lower (bowls of ice water) on the floor you would hear a difference. It would sound better!

 

[Geoffkait]

Lee said,

”Or is it because my hearing and mind are a fresh slate first thing in the morning?”

ah, you must be a morning person.

 

[Geoffkait]

It always sounds good when it rains. Weather has a huge impact on sound velocity by affecting humidity, pressure and temperature. Sound velocity is very important to final sound. It changes the sound propagation pattern

But if temperature is uniform everywhere in the room you won’t hear any difference because it’s the velocity of sound that’s affected, but very little, as the various frequencies of the sound would all travel at the same velocity.

 

[mtemur]

But if temperature is uniform everywhere in the room you won’t hear any difference because it’s the velocity of sound that’s affected, but very little, as the various frequencies of the sound would all travel at the same velocity.

I meant the temperature differences due to weather. Temperature difference between yesterday and today, because of rain, snow etc.

 

[Blackmorec]

Often in early morning, the system seems to have an extra degree of quiet (aka lower noise floor floor?).

The question I’ve been unable to answer:
Is this due to better power from the mains at 5am?
Or is it because my hearing and mind are a fresh slate first thing in the morning?
Or perhaps a combination of these two factors?

In my case, an extra degree of quiet early in the morning is usually due to the volume being turned right down for fear of waking up everyone else in the house with my music

 

[Blackmorec]

It could very well be something as “ordinary” as your audiophile visitor brings his watch and or cellphone with him into the room. Watches and clocks have the peculiar effect of degrading the sound. As I stated previously somewhere watches and clocks in rooms at big HiFi shows are one very big reason the sound usually sucks. I wrote a paper on it with Peter Belt, it wasn’t that long ago.

Best to have visitors check them in at the door. Experiment: take all watches, clocks and cellphones to another room and listen again. Then bring them back into the room. Ugh, right?

Or it could be that you’ve simply moved from your ideal listening position to give your guest the best position.

The most obvious reasonS for sound sucking at hi-fi shows are:
Very high ambient noise levels
Very high seismic vibration
Less than optimum rooms…size, shape, reverberation time
EMI soup from all the switched mode power supplies and chargers
Very poor network bandwith
Very high network traffic
Overloaded mains supply
Poor quality mains infrastructure
unstable room acoustics as # visitors change
Lack of equipment equilibration time
Lots of new gear insufficiently run in

 

[Geoffkait]

I didn’t mean to imply there aren’t many others reasons. Thanks for the nice list of the “usual suspects.“ I suspect the Group Mind is aware of them. What the Group Mind is not aware of is watches and cellphones. We won‘t talk about all the empty beer and wine bottles lying around.

 

[Daverich4]

Following that logic, there should be no listener in the room?

Well, sort of. A long time ago there was a reviewer at TAS named Enid Lumley. One of her things was that for the best sound the listener needed to be naked.

 

[Geoffkait]

That sounds suspiciously like an old wives tale. That would not be a good look at a HiFi showroom or CES. Maybe OK for in home demos.

 

[Geoffkait]

As I slowly removed CDs from my listening room over the past month or so the sound slowly improved, more air, deeper and wider soundstage, and more natural tonality. AND MORE INFORMATION, intricate details. Like a big weight had been lifted. I now keep current rotation in my room only. The better sound was in the room all along, I just couldn’t hear it properly because of the interference (noise and distortion) of certain specific things nearby, in this case CDs. Ironically most audiophiles probably think that CDs and LPs in the room help the sound by acting as dampers or diffusers and the more the merrier!.

I don’t believe *everything* makes a difference but I do believe certain specific things are TOXIC and make a big difference. The difficulty is knowing which is which.

The law of maximization: No matter how much you have in the end you would have had even more if you had started out with more.

Some things make you big, some

 

[jeromelang]

the clear plastic wrappings we place our vinyl records into can accumulate electric static charge.
they can audibly affect sound of audio components nearby, although i have heard it, i have not tried experimenting enough to be able to describe the characteristics of their influence more in detail.

cd discs have that thin aluminum layer that interact with the intrinsic magnetic fields of audio components - affecting their timbral characteristics and soundstaging. you put a whole stack of cd discs together the influence that are being wrought on nearby audio components multiply manifolds.

of course, if you have no choice due to space constraints that you need to store them in huge quantities within the same room as your audio components, you need to pay attention their collective reflectivity, and alternate their placements with empty spaces or soft, absorbent materials.

As I mentioned previously, the issue with CDs (in large quantities) accumulated in the same room as your audio system, affecting the system's audio quality is a magnetic field interference problem. Even a single piece of CD disc (if placed very near an audio component) can also bring about some unpleasant sonic consequences. I've seen countless times people placing one or two of their often-rotational demo CD discs on top of their audio components that they use for demo at hifi shows. The sound is always poor - smallish, reduced soundstage and near-depleted harmonics, lifeless musicality.

 

[Geoffkait]

As I mentioned previously, the issue with CDs (in large quantities) accumulated in the same room as your audio system, affecting the system's audio quality is a magnetic field interference problem. Even a single piece of CD disc (if placed very near an audio component) can also bring about some unpleasant sonic consequences. I've seen countless times people placing one or two of their often-rotational demo CD discs on top of their audio components that they use for demo at hifi shows. The sound is always poor - smallish, reduced soundstage and near-depleted harmonics, lifeless musicality.

I’ve been experimenting with this issue of magnetic and electric fields in the listening room and have developing a superior method. The CD is spun 3 sec per revolution in one hand while holding my passive high gauss demag over the spinning disc, both sides as well as the outer edge (better safe than sorry). That moving magnetic field B produces the neutralizing electric field E. Same logic for cables, bedsheets, etc. I just started an ad on WBF for my new device yesterday. Quantum Demagnetizer. All CDs should be demag’d /Destatic’d prior to playing.

When CDs spin at high rpm they develop an electric static charge on both sides, the electric fields wrap themselves around the disc in bands from the spindle hole to the outer edge. These static electric fields are very persistent and difficult to eliminate. Using the Super Demag on them opens up the sound like a can of sardines.

But the static electric charge can develop on many things in the room, carets, walls, clothing, plastic wrap bundles, curtains, windows, electrical cords, audio cables, power cords, TV cables. So a good scrubbing with a powerful demagnetizer is necessary.

However, as I’ve been commenting CDs -whether they’ve been electrically neutralized or not - are bad for the sound. All media - CDs, LPs, videos, magazines, books should be removed from the room to improve the dynamics, resolution and tonality of the sound. This is a separate issue from the accumulation of electric charges.