Has this ever happened to you? Sounds GREAT and then.... not so much.

[HiFiInsider]

I am experiencing a strange thing while listening to a new audio gear. Immediate impressions were GREAT. Even after a few days of listening. Then it just became dull and no so good. When I felt that way, I started to compare it to my other gear in the same category and it confirmed my feelings. I don't think its listening fatigue because I still like to listen to it. It just doesn't excite me or allow me to feel the music. It's kinda boring.

 

Why would this be? It was impressive at the beginning. Did I like it because I didn't know what I like or what I was listening to? Is it me or the gear? Do manufactures do this to sell more gear?

 

[ted_b]

1) break-in. I've found that certain pieces of equipment go through quite a roller coaster ride (good, bad, better, poor again, until final break out) during their break-in

2) the wow factor won you over, but that same wow factor of a new piece of equipment is wearing off and now you are left with fatigue and boredom; kinda like buying that new tv set that was wowing you in the store, only to find out it had its colors up too high...other than that it is not a great set.

 

[Gobbledigook]

I would have to say that break-in is the main factor at play here. It always is a bit of a rollercoaster, but eventually rewarding.

Have you ever tried the Ayre/Cardas "Irrational but Effacious" CD?

It makes no technical sense, but it does work, at least for me.

 

[audiozorro]

Music elicits different emotions and human responses. New music that may have hold some initial interest with you may be quite ho hum or boring later.

 

Music that makes you want to get up and dance, sing, cry, run in fright or give you goosebumps is bound to likely to bring out similar emotions from you in the future.

 

Most of us try not to listen to music that we hate but we often listen to music that sounds good or interesting but does not move us.

 

I think this type of reaction is not limited to music. It's just as true for movies, TV shows, or books. The really good stuff is still very good regardless of the hardware.

 

The mood can be just as important as the music though many times the music can get you in the mood.

 

And finally we have the newness of things, when your senses are very sharp and your experiences very new.

 

So when you align these 3 stars; the music, the mood, and the newness you often can create that magical moment. However after some time the best you may have is only 2 stars; the music and the mood.

 

That's my story and I think I'm sticking with it.

 

[HiFiInsider]

The first thing I noticed with this new piece was it was forward sounding and the bass was rich. I didn't think anything of it and kept on listening. A couple of days later I switch back to the old piece and noticed the music was alive so I started to go back and fourth every hour or so just to see if I was hearing things. I am listening to the new piece as I write this. The new piece sounds like listening to a CD and the old piece was music. I tried different gear to see if it was synergy between one piece to another, it's not. It was the same on every piece I tried. Some sounded even worst.

 

It can't be break in because this piece is well broken in by previous users.

 

[wgscott]

Does it have tubes in it? I don't know if it is true for audiophile tube amps, but in the old days (when I was about 5) this was a tube phenomenon. I've also noticed it with metal halide lamps on my reef tank. They burn very bright for a short period of time and then go into a protracted shallow death spiral.

 

[HiFiInsider]

This piece is a solid state. My comparisons were done by only switching RCA inputs from one to another to minimize interference by other components or cables.

 

Do you think manufactures tune the gear this way to give impressive initial impressions? Sort of like HDTVs at your local electronic store. All are set to "dynamic" mode to get your attention.

 

[MetalNuts]

Could you provide more information?

 

First of all, what audio gear is it? Is it amp, source, dac, speaker or accessory?

 

Most of the equipment need run-in time and there might be ups and downs until it settles and every brand has its own optimal run-in time. If it is speakers, placement might not be the same as the previous one. Is there any setting that you need to attend to your new gear that might cause the problem.

 

Apart from the new gear, did you change you listening environment like placing other furniture or even a vase within the path of the sound or reflecting surface, that might have an effect as well.

 

There are so many causes and I am afraid that there is no one else but yourself who could without the benefit of further information identify the cause.

 

 

[wgscott]

I had an amp board go bad. I am pretty sure it was ok when I first got it, but then I noticed some distortion. I spent a couple of weeks convincing myself that it wasn't a real problem, and then I looked at a test tone with an oscilloscope, and it was very clearly objectively real.

 

So maybe you roached a resistor or something.

 

[Mick3]

Hi,

 

Reading between the lines it seems like it's the loaner Burson 160D you're talking about. It is strange that it would change so much in just a few days. Maybe there is a fault after so many listeners, so many packings, re-packings and journeys by post.

 

Is it the dac or amp section that seems dull Mike?

 

 

[Abstraction]

I have been doing serious audio for forty years, at least as serious as I could afford. I started building Dynaco kits, and I now have a collection of equipment that surely qualifies as middle high-end. I have been through many amps, speakers, turntables, cd players, cables, computers, etc. My gear sounds much better at night than in the morning. It sounds better with the lights turned low. Some times it sounds rather dull and tiresome for a period of a few weeks and then suddenly sounds great. The gear is not that important. The great variable is always me. Listening to music requires attention to the music, not the equipment. Even the best of gear is dull after the new wears off. You get a new piece and think WoW! this is the greatest, and then you start wondering if it really sounds that good. You get nervous that you should have bought that other piece that you were considering. Oh, this is awful. I have to tear down this house and build one with a dedicated listening room, designed by a famous acoustical engineer, etc. Let's see. I'll hock the silverware....

 

When my gear doesn't sound good the problem is generally me.

 

 

 

[ted_b]

"Do you think manufactures tune the gear this way to give impressive initial impressions? Sort of like HDTVs at your local electronic store. All are set to "dynamic" mode to get your attention."

 

Personally, I don't think mfg'ers do this intentionally (i.e to fool anyone) but I do think some have house sound or have ears that prefer first row vs 10th row...maybe it's what their bias or even their own systems dictate. If one mfg'er has a test system that is slightly warm, their DAC/etc. would tend to be slightly cool to neutralize (although I've gotta assume the bigger boys test on a myriad of systems). But "house sound" or "bryston sound" or krell sound" is a well known phenomena, and presupposes a tendency toward left or right of neutral. Combine that with your own tendencies and you might have too much of one shift. But that shift sounds so original, new and different early on that you accept this new sound as "better". Until it wears on you...

 

[barrows]

"Do you think manufactures tune the gear this way to give impressive initial impressions? Sort of like HDTVs at your local electronic store. All are set to "dynamic" mode to get your attention."

 

I can confidently say that manufacturers in the high end do not resort to tricks as above. As Ted notes, manufacturers do have "house" sound and they try to make gear which is as "perfect" a representative of the sound they feel is "best" as they can.

I would suggest the differences which you hear could be the result of many things:

Settling: despite the fact that the piece of gear in question is "broken in", I find that most solid state gear prefers to be powered up all the time, and that powering it down results in the need for a settling/stabilising period whoch can be as little as an hour, or as long as 24 hours or more.

Listener: As mentioned by others, our subjective listening experience is different depending on our mood, levels of stress, and fatigue. Try to approach critical listening sessions (used for evalaution) in a similar state of mind/body to reduce these factors.

AC power quality: depending on the local power quality, the AC power can change drastically, and alter the sound of the system. Sometimes this is predictable (time wise) but often it is not. I would expect that weird things are going on with power on the eastern seaboard of the US right now with all the damage from Irene.

RF interference: we live in a world which in most places is saturated with RFI, and these levels and frequencies change constantly-some components are more sensitive to this interference than others. Along a similar, but natural, vein, I wonder if high levels of sunspot activity also have effects on sound...

Music: for evaluations, make sure you have a set of reference tracks that you use frequently. These should be of music which you are very familiar with, and be varied enough to test the various playback performance parameters.

+1 for the Ayre "Irrational but Efficacious" disc. I like to run a couple of sweeps of this thing before any listening when I am trying to evaluate a piece of gear. This sweep seems to reduce system inconsistency, and allows one to actually listen to a change in the system brought on by the gear swap, rather than "settling" type factors.

 

 

 

[Jim Smith]

Sometimes the culprit is related to the electrical service.

 

From a drop in voltage, to a nearly corroded cable, to new noise interference on the line.

 

I've run into all three of the above on voicing trips, the most recent being the corroded underground cable coming into my own home.

 

In my case, it had been slightly nicked by the septic tank people about a year earlier, and had gradually turned into a mostly powdery substance.

 

Although everything still worked, it was pretty nice when the power was restored as it should have been.

 

Might be worth checking to be sure.

 

[Paul R]

Welcome to why you should always listen to new gear, hardware or software, for a few days before deciding about it.

 

With the quality of the gear and software we are talking about, all of them are going to sound good. The problem is when you hear something different, it is almost guaranteed to sound better when you first hear it.

 

Snap decisions in audio are likely to be both wrong, and expensive.

 

So in all probability, what changed was not so much the gear, as your ability to hear the gear. Or to put it another way, you learned how to listen to it and were better able to evaluate it against your personal preferences.

 

Hope that makes sense. It applies even to the "professionals" by the way, as well as to us amateurs.

 

-Paul

 

 

[bernardl]

Did the position of the moon change between your 2 listening sessions? :-)

 

More seriously, I would probably vote for input current quality or a defect resulting from a poorly fit component.

 

But generally speaking, we have to be aware that our poor senses are overall extremely bad at comparing sounds from memory and set absolute levels to them. Humans are really only able to measure two things relative to another when they happen at the same time... and even then we can be very easily abused. So, with all due respect, I have to question your belief that the sound did change.

 

One fun example showing how easily we can be abused even when 2 things can be seen at the same time...:

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=57165.msg462393#msg462393

 

The 2 patches have the exact same level of brightness when measured in Photoshop... yet 99% of people would swear above any possible doubt that they are different.

 

Cheers,

Bernard