Tonight my system sounded better than it did last night...........
- Thread starter idc
- Start date
Andy H
Well-known member
John Duncan
Well-known member
idc:.........is it my ears, the mains, my mood?
It's most probably the mains.
What time were you listening? Its almost highly likley that your electricity sub-station wasnt mbeing used as much as it should.end result? your hifi sounds better!
A good experiment of this (though not recommended for obvious reaons!i.e angry neighbours!)
is to try listening to your hifi/home cinema system in the middle of the night! i think youll be amazed at the difference.
its no different to trying to view a website that gets a sudden influx of traffic and the site crashes! exactly the same scenario there!
HTH
It's most probably the mains.
What time were you listening? Its almost highly likley that your electricity sub-station wasnt mbeing used as much as it should.end result? your hifi sounds better!
A good experiment of this (though not recommended for obvious reaons!i.e angry neighbours!)
is to try listening to your hifi/home cinema system in the middle of the night! i think youll be amazed at the difference.
its no different to trying to view a website that gets a sudden influx of traffic and the site crashes! exactly the same scenario there!
HTH
i used to work backshift 3pm to 11pm so i used listen most during the early hours
and also thought my headphones at the time jecklin float electrostatics ace cans- sounded
much better i also put this down to the mains working better, my hifi still sounds better in the wee small hours.
and also thought my headphones at the time jecklin float electrostatics ace cans- sounded
much better i also put this down to the mains working better, my hifi still sounds better in the wee small hours.
jaxwired
Well-known member
Luke S:Is it the same track from the same album and cd as last night?
Luke S; different albums, but same genre; the night before Faithless then last night Bent. Both listening times were between 11pm and back of midnight. Similar mood and amount of alcohol, same ears, could the mains really be the culprit?
Luke S; different albums, but same genre; the night before Faithless then last night Bent. Both listening times were between 11pm and back of midnight. Similar mood and amount of alcohol, same ears, could the mains really be the culprit?
It also may depend on if the system is warmed up or not (?). Some people have reported better output once the system has been up and running for a while.
Chainrock, both times the amp was off and cold and the listening time was the same, but the better sound was noticeable from the start. The XcanV2 does not get as warm now it is being run by an ipod as opposed to when it was plugged into the main amp.
I am professor Woody Zog of the german institute of electrical and electronic engineers & feel I can speak with some authority on the subject of mains leads. I have made many, lengthy studies of them & have written papers on the subject. Differences between cables can definitely be detected by my hearing dog Wolfgang.
Never spend less than £200 on a cable as some cheap leads may be wired incorrectly & with a poor earth connection. Never forget; earth is brown. The quality of the earth/ground connection to your amplifier is very important for good bass. We all know that music needs a good ground bass & this is where the terminology is derived from.
The earth pins of the plugs colour the sound no end. UK mains plugs have a square, boxy sound, whereas german & french ones have a round sound. American plugs sound rather thin and reedy, often with a hole in the response. A warm sound may sometimes be an indication of an overheating, overloaded cable or fuse, or that you are having a cup of ovaltine.
Bass results can vary, as the resistance to earth in any house varies with the phases of the moon & tides. The best earth is obtained when the moon is at perigree over your house. This coincides with high tide, but more importantly, the raising of the local water table in underground aquefers. Look up the nearest town's tide times before showing off your speakers! You can improve the earth connection at your property by driving 12 foot long - silver or preferably gold rods into wet ground - outside & wiring them to the earth tag in your fusebox.
Good luck and auf wiedersein
Never spend less than £200 on a cable as some cheap leads may be wired incorrectly & with a poor earth connection. Never forget; earth is brown. The quality of the earth/ground connection to your amplifier is very important for good bass. We all know that music needs a good ground bass & this is where the terminology is derived from.
The earth pins of the plugs colour the sound no end. UK mains plugs have a square, boxy sound, whereas german & french ones have a round sound. American plugs sound rather thin and reedy, often with a hole in the response. A warm sound may sometimes be an indication of an overheating, overloaded cable or fuse, or that you are having a cup of ovaltine.
Bass results can vary, as the resistance to earth in any house varies with the phases of the moon & tides. The best earth is obtained when the moon is at perigree over your house. This coincides with high tide, but more importantly, the raising of the local water table in underground aquefers. Look up the nearest town's tide times before showing off your speakers! You can improve the earth connection at your property by driving 12 foot long - silver or preferably gold rods into wet ground - outside & wiring them to the earth tag in your fusebox.
Good luck and auf wiedersein
There is one characteristic of the electricity grid which does vary. This is the frequency at which the power comes into your home. When demand is high this drops below 50hz to the legal floor of 49.7 ish. This is the metric by which power stations turn on and off.
see http://dynamicdemand.co.uk/grid.htm for a pretty live graph of the current frequency.
Whether this has any bearing on sound quality I'd doubt, but it was interesting to me at least.
cheers
see http://dynamicdemand.co.uk/grid.htm for a pretty live graph of the current frequency.
Whether this has any bearing on sound quality I'd doubt, but it was interesting to me at least.
cheers
Professor Woody:
I am professor Woody Zog of the german institute of electrical and electronic engineers & feel I can speak with some authority on the subject of mains leads. I have made many, lengthy studies of them & have written papers on the subject. Differences between cables can definitely be detected by my hearing dog Wolfgang.
Never spend less than £200 on a cable as some cheap leads may be wired incorrectly & with a poor earth connection. Never forget; earth is brown. The quality of the earth/ground connection to your amplifier is very important for good bass. We all know that music needs a good ground bass & this is where the terminology is derived from.
The earth pins of the plugs colour the sound no end. UK mains plugs have a square, boxy sound, whereas german & french ones have a round sound. American plugs sound rather thin and reedy, often with a hole in the response. A warm sound may sometimes be an indication of an overheating, overloaded cable or fuse.
Bass results can vary, as the resistance to earth in any house varies with the phases of the moon & tides. The best earth is obtained when the moon is at perigree over your house. This coincides with high tide, but more importantly, the raising of the local water table in underground aquefers. Look up the nearest town's tide times before showing off your speakers! You can improve the earth connection at your property by driving 12 foot long - silver or preferably gold rods into wet ground - outside & wiring them to the earth tag in your fusebox.
Good luck and auf wiedersein
Sarcasm has never been a very good cover for ignorance, has it 'Prof Woody'?
I am professor Woody Zog of the german institute of electrical and electronic engineers & feel I can speak with some authority on the subject of mains leads. I have made many, lengthy studies of them & have written papers on the subject. Differences between cables can definitely be detected by my hearing dog Wolfgang.
Never spend less than £200 on a cable as some cheap leads may be wired incorrectly & with a poor earth connection. Never forget; earth is brown. The quality of the earth/ground connection to your amplifier is very important for good bass. We all know that music needs a good ground bass & this is where the terminology is derived from.
The earth pins of the plugs colour the sound no end. UK mains plugs have a square, boxy sound, whereas german & french ones have a round sound. American plugs sound rather thin and reedy, often with a hole in the response. A warm sound may sometimes be an indication of an overheating, overloaded cable or fuse.
Bass results can vary, as the resistance to earth in any house varies with the phases of the moon & tides. The best earth is obtained when the moon is at perigree over your house. This coincides with high tide, but more importantly, the raising of the local water table in underground aquefers. Look up the nearest town's tide times before showing off your speakers! You can improve the earth connection at your property by driving 12 foot long - silver or preferably gold rods into wet ground - outside & wiring them to the earth tag in your fusebox.
Good luck and auf wiedersein
Sarcasm has never been a very good cover for ignorance, has it 'Prof Woody'?
basshound
Well-known member
Professor Woody:
I am professor Woody Zog of the german institute of electrical and electronic engineers & feel I can speak with some authority on the subject of mains leads. I have made many, lengthy studies of them & have written papers on the subject. Differences between cables can definitely be detected by my hearing dog Wolfgang.
Never spend less than £200 on a cable as some cheap leads may be wired incorrectly & with a poor earth connection. Never forget; earth is brown. The quality of the earth/ground connection to your amplifier is very important for good bass. We all know that music needs a good ground bass & this is where the terminology is derived from.
The earth pins of the plugs colour the sound no end. UK mains plugs have a square, boxy sound, whereas german & french ones have a round sound. American plugs sound rather thin and reedy, often with a hole in the response. A warm sound may sometimes be an indication of an overheating, overloaded cable or fuse.
Bass results can vary, as the resistance to earth in any house varies with the phases of the moon & tides. The best earth is obtained when the moon is at perigree over your house. This coincides with high tide, but more importantly, the raising of the local water table in underground aquefers. Look up the nearest town's tide times before showing off your speakers! You can improve the earth connection at your property by driving 12 foot long - silver or preferably gold rods into wet ground - outside & wiring them to the earth tag in your fusebox.
Good luck and auf wiedersein
At last, a reasoned,scientific,feasible explanation []
I am professor Woody Zog of the german institute of electrical and electronic engineers & feel I can speak with some authority on the subject of mains leads. I have made many, lengthy studies of them & have written papers on the subject. Differences between cables can definitely be detected by my hearing dog Wolfgang.
Never spend less than £200 on a cable as some cheap leads may be wired incorrectly & with a poor earth connection. Never forget; earth is brown. The quality of the earth/ground connection to your amplifier is very important for good bass. We all know that music needs a good ground bass & this is where the terminology is derived from.
The earth pins of the plugs colour the sound no end. UK mains plugs have a square, boxy sound, whereas german & french ones have a round sound. American plugs sound rather thin and reedy, often with a hole in the response. A warm sound may sometimes be an indication of an overheating, overloaded cable or fuse.
Bass results can vary, as the resistance to earth in any house varies with the phases of the moon & tides. The best earth is obtained when the moon is at perigree over your house. This coincides with high tide, but more importantly, the raising of the local water table in underground aquefers. Look up the nearest town's tide times before showing off your speakers! You can improve the earth connection at your property by driving 12 foot long - silver or preferably gold rods into wet ground - outside & wiring them to the earth tag in your fusebox.
Good luck and auf wiedersein
At last, a reasoned,scientific,feasible explanation [
]
Professor Woody: I am professor Woody Zog of the german institute of electrical and electronic engineers....
...surely not the Woody Zog, former senior lecturer at the University of Trollheim? It is an honour indeed that you have selected my thread out of the many thousands here to post your musings on the delecate subject of cables.
...surely not the Woody Zog, former senior lecturer at the University of Trollheim? It is an honour indeed that you have selected my thread out of the many thousands here to post your musings on the delecate subject of cables.
I am Professor Spelling and have have selected your vord 'delecate' as incorrect. The word sounds different post midnight but I vill correct you to 'delicate'. If you mean 'defecate' zen zat is a very different vord.
Bah. The only professor that I respect on this forum is professorhat, and he is not actually a professor and may not even wear a hat.
One thing that isn't often considered is fluctuations is mains supply - forget quality, I'm talking quantity.
We're having weird issues with odd spikes in our mains usage (most days around 12kWh, but odd spikes up towards 17 or 18kWh, usually with nothing to explain the extra usage).
Anyway, I bought a mains tester/meter from Maplin a few months ago, and I've found that in the evening our mains voltage creeps up from a daytime average of around 232-234 volts, to 242-246 volts. I don't know enough about the workings of the mains stages in our equipment so can't comment on how likely this is, but I wonder if an increase in voltage makes the life of these parts a little easier. If the extra volts find their way through to the internal components, it may be a little like overclocking a PC - or adding (mili)volts to aid stability.
In addition my findings, all the sockets on the spur that supplies the kettle show a drop of around 4-5 volts when the kettle is turned on. This part way negates any benefit offered by the night-time increase in volts, but obviously only whilst the kettle is on. Sockets on other spurs show a negligible drop in volts. This has made me wonder what other appliances may have an influence. If your gear is plugged into a socket that's back to back with one in the kitchen, then any activity by the fridge/freezer etc might make a difference, if they share the same spur. Adding stuff from the shops one night makes the freezer work that evening, when it needs little work if the door hasn't been opened all day - could it (or something else) have been active on the first night, but not on the second?
Before the nay-sayers (you know the ones, the anti-mains cable gang) pipe up, the mains meter I use has been checked for accuracy by comparing with TWO accurate multimeters at mains voltage.
My cousin has a 40-odd inch Samsung Plasma, and the picture quality is awful during the day, but picks up at night. All evening the lights in the house brighten up, then dim down, then brighten up again, and so on. The improvement in picture quality coincides with the lights stopping their fluctuation dance. You can't kid me that mains fluctuations don't affect output quality. The house probably needs a re-wire, as the fuse board was changed a few years ago from the original 60's fuse-wire board. Without the expense of a re-wire, the second best option is to try to filter out the mains anomalies introduced by the house. I plan to try my Tacima mains filter at my cousins, and see what (if any) improvement it makes. That will settle the mains filter argument for me, once and for all.
We're having weird issues with odd spikes in our mains usage (most days around 12kWh, but odd spikes up towards 17 or 18kWh, usually with nothing to explain the extra usage).
Anyway, I bought a mains tester/meter from Maplin a few months ago, and I've found that in the evening our mains voltage creeps up from a daytime average of around 232-234 volts, to 242-246 volts. I don't know enough about the workings of the mains stages in our equipment so can't comment on how likely this is, but I wonder if an increase in voltage makes the life of these parts a little easier. If the extra volts find their way through to the internal components, it may be a little like overclocking a PC - or adding (mili)volts to aid stability.
In addition my findings, all the sockets on the spur that supplies the kettle show a drop of around 4-5 volts when the kettle is turned on. This part way negates any benefit offered by the night-time increase in volts, but obviously only whilst the kettle is on. Sockets on other spurs show a negligible drop in volts. This has made me wonder what other appliances may have an influence. If your gear is plugged into a socket that's back to back with one in the kitchen, then any activity by the fridge/freezer etc might make a difference, if they share the same spur. Adding stuff from the shops one night makes the freezer work that evening, when it needs little work if the door hasn't been opened all day - could it (or something else) have been active on the first night, but not on the second?
Before the nay-sayers (you know the ones, the anti-mains cable gang) pipe up, the mains meter I use has been checked for accuracy by comparing with TWO accurate multimeters at mains voltage.
My cousin has a 40-odd inch Samsung Plasma, and the picture quality is awful during the day, but picks up at night. All evening the lights in the house brighten up, then dim down, then brighten up again, and so on. The improvement in picture quality coincides with the lights stopping their fluctuation dance. You can't kid me that mains fluctuations don't affect output quality. The house probably needs a re-wire, as the fuse board was changed a few years ago from the original 60's fuse-wire board. Without the expense of a re-wire, the second best option is to try to filter out the mains anomalies introduced by the house. I plan to try my Tacima mains filter at my cousins, and see what (if any) improvement it makes. That will settle the mains filter argument for me, once and for all.
I would just like to add my 2 pence worth, I was happy to see
this blog spot with the "my system sounded better than it did last
night..."
I have been having this same strange anomaly for many years and YES,
your hifi definitely sounds better at certain times of the day and night! 2am -
5am sounds great, 5pm to 9pm sounds rubbish so don't even bother switching it on. Or
buy a £49.99 mini system from asda for these times LOL. It would appear
that the cleaner and peak voltage from the grid does have a significant
effect on how our precious systems perform. I AM CONVINCED OF THIS. Also
the barometric air pressure and weather will also have some effects. You could
also disconnect the mains and use high current lead acid or gel batteries to
the required voltage of your system for truly stunning effects on the music. I
actually experimented with this a few years back using pure DC from batteries
running amplifiers and the difference was amazing when running on pure DC..
this blog spot with the "my system sounded better than it did last
night..."
I have been having this same strange anomaly for many years and YES,
your hifi definitely sounds better at certain times of the day and night! 2am -
5am sounds great, 5pm to 9pm sounds rubbish so don't even bother switching it on. Or
buy a £49.99 mini system from asda for these times LOL. It would appear
that the cleaner and peak voltage from the grid does have a significant
effect on how our precious systems perform. I AM CONVINCED OF THIS. Also
the barometric air pressure and weather will also have some effects. You could
also disconnect the mains and use high current lead acid or gel batteries to
the required voltage of your system for truly stunning effects on the music. I
actually experimented with this a few years back using pure DC from batteries
running amplifiers and the difference was amazing when running on pure DC..
System sounds great all the time, except for about 15-20 minutes from powering on. A bit cold and harsh, but maybe we should just shut the windows more.
I am qualified to comment, however most of the people on here & that buy insanely priced mains leads - of all things - in the belief that this willl improve their listening or viewing in any way at all - are simply easily lead...
I'm writing to the trading standards authority about the adverts in the May edition of What Hi Fi. The claims made by the people trying to sell these mains leads are as insane as my Professor Woody posts (only they weren't being sarcastic).
Ta ta
I'm writing to the trading standards authority about the adverts in the May edition of What Hi Fi. The claims made by the people trying to sell these mains leads are as insane as my Professor Woody posts (only they weren't being sarcastic).
Ta ta
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