Frank, a post such as this that leaves me scratching my head. What is it that you do or what do you attribute this wonderful effect turning itself on only to turn itself off. I would have to think that anyone who fiddles with a system and makes a change it becomes permanent until or unless that change is removed.
I have not read once Frank just what it is that you do to make the sound so perfect in your system. Please explain to me once that perfect sound is achieved why is it that the change dissipates. Could this be a manifestation of the type of power where you live and perhaps a simple power conditioner or adequate grounding etc might be preferred. I am miffed about your listening technique with each er on the driver. What do you do when you listen to correct the situation and make it better. I don't believe that you have once told us what you do to improve the system
Steve, what it's about is removing audibly
important imperfections - they're not the usual things that people concern themselves with, hence why most don't come across this behaviour. The turning off aspect occurred most dramatically in my first system, 30 years ago, because I didn't have much understanding of possible causes, I lacked the knowledge I have today.
In that first, epiphany system it was most likely static that was my biggest problem - I had the speaker cables simply laying on the nylon carpet, and as the system operated the SQ steadily degraded; I had to switch everything off, and then back on again to restore the quality. These days of course I would use cable lifters, or equivalent - the point being that one needs to understand where the problem lies, and then do something appropriate.
Regarding listening to the driver, it's simply equivalent to the measurement crowd getting a reading of 0.0001% distortion on their AP box - I'm closely monitoring how much audible distortion the system is producing; taking a reading, subjectively.
Over the years, for each system, it's been different issues - there is no one correct answer. In my early Perreaux based setup, the big one was that amplifier's power supplies - I had to remove the main capacitors in the end, and add multiple small, higher quality caps. Yes, power supplies, and conditioning the mains power is usually a key requirement, and I have experimented with different techniques over the years - I read about an idea, and then try it, to see if it's effective.
Currently, in the NAD based system, the inherent power supplies seem quite adequate, at this point in the tweaking cycle. The major flaws came from the complexity of the amplifier, with far too many, poor quality switches in the pathway of the signal - now largely sorted.
Using that listening test, the system at the moment is in a just reasonable shape: it doesn't pass muster, I can still hear distortion coming through from the system not sufficiently warmed up on any particular day, and interference from the mains and other electrical activity. This I can "solve" by thoroughly conditioning for a number of hours, and then switching off everything in the house that causes audible artifacts - the 'proper' solutions just for those issues would be to replace various parts, like the speaker drivers, with better quality units; run the electronics 24/7, and markedly improve the isolation of the electronics from interference.
People who have intrinsically high quality gear, but don't achieve the best sound, would have other issues - ground loops picking up interference, a few poor quality connections in key areas, static buildup from some cause, insufficient isolation from poor mains, vibration causing audible issues, are just some of the things to look at - the approach is to determine what is undermining the potential of the particular system, and then fix it; every rig will have its own story of why it doesn't sound as good as it could, it's a "fault-finding" process to sort these things out.
