"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
James Harris wrote:


My hi-fi sounds great sometimes and not others.

Most likely causes would be your state of mind and your selection of music
to listen to.

I am told that it
needs an hour's warm-up and this could fit with the times it has
sounded good.

If your system has some technical defect, then warming up could deal with
the problem. In general audio systems are up to peak performance within a
minute or less of commencment of use.

For example, great one evening but poor the next
morning.

Your system could have a defect that makes it extraordinarly sensitive to
operating temperature.



More like changes in your hearing. Have you ever noticed that you set your
clock-radio in sleep mode and go to sleep listening to the news or whatever
fairly quietly, but when it wakes you in the morning it is deafeningly loud?

Your hearing is done by a 'field' of very fine hairs inside your ear canal
that flex with the air movement that we call sound. During the day ambient
noise, from traffic, being inside a moving car/train/plane, and/or workplace
noise, etc etc cause the hairs to get tired and somewhat slow to move -
rather like a lawn on which the kids have been playing all day - so your
hearing sensitivity decays. Whilst you sleep in a relatively quiet
environment the hairs rejuvenate so that come the morning your hearing is
vastly more sensitive - the grass perks up again. The hairs also deplete in
quantity and flexibility with age, hence why in most people high frequency
sensitivity decays as you get older. Deafness, especially that induced by
working in a high-moise environment with protection, occurs when the hairs
stay tired and cannot restore themselves - i.e. the grass has had neither
food or water and stays 'flat.'

In terms of hi-fi, in the morning you probably don't play it quite so loud
which affects both how the speaker sounds in itself and how it interacts
with the room, thus affecting the subjective sound quality.

Subjectivity is by definition opinion, so how you hear something may and
most probably differ from how someone else hears it and hence why I think,
for example, that the Wharfedale 8.3 is awful, but What Hi-Fi think it is
the best thing since sliced bread!


--

Woody