My best listening experiences occur late at night, usually past 11pm...but after midnight is even better. I notice a quieter background, more spacious and wider soundstage, firmer imaging and increased clarity, and the magic of depth or 3-dimensionality. I would feel no need to change a thing in my system late at night, but during the day I couldn't stop considering what improvements I might need to make. Side note: I don't have any room treatments (coming soon hopefully), but with all the positive talk of room treating, I hope acoustic treatment might have a similar effect.
I'm guessing that several factors which may be involved in this phenomena are lower noise floor, more relaxed mental state, and better incoming power. I think of the three, power may be the most important. I can be relaxed and have a quiet house during the middle of the day, but almost never hear the same effects.
I have a Belkin PF60,
http://catalog.belkin.com/PureAV_detail.process?Product_Id=178925, which I bought for my system while living at my last apartment in downtown Indy. The building was very old, and I really had no way of trusting the electrical system so I thought the surge protection was warranted. I was also caddy-corner from the electrical substation, so it was sort of neat being that close to the power source. Anyway, I would observe the voltage reading on my Belkin unit throughout the days, weeks, months. Voltage was overall lower in the summer, higher in the winter, lower during the day, higher at night. Usually it was about 2-2.5 volts between low and high during a daily cycle. After midnight it was usually pegged around 126V, on a few occasions during the winter I found it around 127V.
I have no real conclusion to my observations, except voltage was peaked at the best listening times, but that doesn't say anything else about the signal or the noise it carried.
So I sort of have these mental questions about system power and how the incoming power might be treated for overall improvement. I'm guessing the building had old AC lines, no idea how it was run. The electrical outlets were terrible...plugs would hang from the receptacles, I used electrical tape to hold the plugs in place. So, while it may be worthy to upgrade power cords, electrical outlets, run dedicated lines, or perform other such power related modifications...I wonder about treating the incoming signal first, as in my experience having crappy power outlets wasn't a problem as long as it was the right time of night for listening.
I have no real experience with power modifications and am unable to advocate or dismiss them. I am not looking for a discussion on power cords or hospital grade outlets so much. I just wanted to inquire on if others have similar thoughts on source power, and if anyone has been able to address this aspect in their system with positive results, to bring the late night listening experience to 24 hours a day. How might this be done, what options are there? Also, what might be the technical reasoning for this? Is it simply more available power, less signal noise, both, or something else?
BTW, my cheapest option is to keep serious listening late at night, so that is the one I'll be going with for now. But later...well, you know how this audiophool thing can get! Really, nothing will be done by me on this issue unless I think I have a house I will be at for an extended time period. I just find it fascinating how much better my system sounds at night.
