Does your system sound 10K better in the dark?

[Oldgit the tenth]

Serious question really. If I have any real want to listen to an album, I can only do it in late evening/dark.

Ok, it highlights the senses but it must do more?, evoke teenage memories of early bedroom escapades?, forbidden nocturnal fruit?, what is it?

 

[Galu]

Many explanations have been offered for this phenomenon including:

• The listening environment is quieter at night.
• The electricity supply is less noisy at night.

 

[MarcelvdG]

Less distraction from visual information?

 

[Oldgit the tenth]

It's all these but more

 

[Brinkman]

I tend to close my eyes when tasting fine food & beverages, also when seasoning food I’m cooking.

I find music more subjectively pleasing first thing in the morning when my senses are fresh. The selection of music I listen to first thing in the morning is paramount.

 

[mjf]

if it is dark/closed eyes/ you are entirely concentrated at listening musik.
divided concentration is only half concentration...........

 

[Galu]

. . . evoke(s) teenage memories of early bedroom escapades?

Like me hiding under the blankets listening to Radio Luxembourg on my war surplus headphones you mean?

 

[JMFahey]

Well, *SEX* is often better in the dark ... at least many fine Ladies prefer it that way

 

[rayma]

Less distraction from visual information?

Definitely, shared ram between eyes and ears.

 

[jdarg]

I'm a 99% night listener but lately have been doing more listening with some lights on, lava lamp and small led, only because as I get older my night vision is crap.

I agree a morning session is awesome sometimes too but I only do that a few times per year.

 

[Oldgit the tenth]

Like me hiding under the blankets listening to Radio Luxembourg on my war surplus headphones you mean?

Not exactly how I was thinking, , but I'm with you.


Now, headphones, decent stuff, in the dark? I still hear stuff I never heard before, magic.

 

[Windforce85]

Human's perception of environment relies in 80% on eyesight. This is our most important sense by a far margin. Putting it into 'low power mode' during evening or switching it off by closing eyes deffinitely helps. Eeyesight constantly seeks and spots on something interesting to consume by our brain which is always hungry for stimuli and it just seeks for it using eyesight as a priority, for example we spot our eyesight on track names, woofer cones, books on the shelf etc. during listening. We do it totally involuntarily. Everytime it happens, it simply crowds our processing data bus with much higher priority than just hearing or feeling (yes, acoustics has much effect with sense of feeling, we can feel sound pressure as well). Environmental acoustical noise level drop during night listening is also very important. Lowering environmental noise level is like making recording sound not like 8 bit but 16 bit. Noise level coming from electricity has neglible effect considering earlier two.

 

[Bill Coltrane]

Serious question really. If I have any real want to listen to an album, I can only do it in late evening/dark.

Ok, it highlights the senses but it must do more?, evoke teenage memories of early bedroom escapades?, forbidden nocturnal fruit?, what is it?

As always, it can be one of two things: Audible differences are real or they are imagined.

If the audible difference is real, it is fairly easy to objectively measure that.

So can you measure differences in linear/non linear distortions, amount of noise in the signal and it's spectrum. If not, then there's a high probability that you are imaging things.

 

[scottjoplin]

There is less ambient noise so listening levels can be lower and so distortion on all levels is decreased

 

[Oldgit the tenth]

As always, it can be one of two things: Audible differences are real or they are imagined.

If the audible difference is real, it is fairly easy to objectively measure that.

So can you measure differences in linear/non linear distortions, amount of noise in the signal and it's spectrum. If not, then there's a high probability that you are imaging things.

Nat 'avin that, it sounds better, plus if it didn't and it was imagination it sits alongside the thousands spent at Hifi stores for just a difference, not an improvement.

My system also sounds better when I'm in the house on my own, I don't here that "turn that down" sound that seems to occur on every LP, strange,

 

[Galu]

Human's perception of environment relies in 80% on eyesight.

Absolutely! Just placing a non-working speaker cabinet between your working stereo pair can result in a more stable central image. The eye indeed leads the brain!

In the old days of mono TV, the speaker could be placed quite a distance from the screen, but the eye would pull the sound into the middle of the screen!

 

[Oldgit the tenth]

But even a non working speaker sounds, this is why top Hifi studios do single speaker demos, any speaker in the same room as the sound source resonates "in sympathy" and affects the sound, , makes you think??

 

[Galu]

The centre cabinet might just as well be empty and devoid of drivers. I suppose you could now say that the empty box will resonate, but that would be stretching the point.

 

[Bicicletta]

two cents

YouTube

 

[Pano]

Human's perception of environment relies in 80% on eyesight.

I'd want to "see" some proof of that. Without sound I feel very cut off from my environment. And better audio is a real boost to me feeling involved in a movie or TV show.

I have had listening rooms that were extremely dark and quiet. I agree the system sounded darn good in that setting. Although I did prefer a little soft light for visual stimulation in the long term.