good listening/bad listening

i think you are talking about the difference for enjoyment and critical listening. i think we all go through that. most of the time i listen for enjoyment but every once and a while i will go through a critical listening phase.

It mostly has to do with the way you feel. If you are into subjective audio, you should accept your own subjectvity and stop blaming the grid!

I do also. However, in my case, I believe it has to do with my mood at any given time. By mood, I actually mean the number of cocktails consumed.

I do, too.

However, I do most of my listening at night when the power quality should be better than the day & I still "say, ehh why does it sound like that...I don't remember it soundin like that?"

I think it has to do with stress or how I'm feeling physically as I've noticed that when the same tracks are played later the same night, they sound better.

With that said, "varying power quality" is a factor, also. Another factor may be equipment warm-up time.

Other factors, less well understood, may also be involved.

To mr Bad Listening is when you are drinking with friends, boy that can get expensive if you are not cautious!
I have those good days and bad days, we just had a get-together with members in our little "Ears and Beers" club and wow the system made me proud!

Do you ever listen to your system and say WOW that is great? It really sounds excellent.

Yes, every time I switch it on. Weird I know but it is still amazes me even after many years.

Then, other days you say, ehh why does it sound like that...I don't remember it soundin like that?

No - my system is constant - it does not change in response. The only time I don't enjoy listening is when I have a cold and my ears/sinuses are blocked. If your system does not enthrall you every time then you there is something not quite right. Music played well at realistic levels is always extremely impressive.

There is no "bad listening" from my system. I always think to myself: wow, that's fantastic sound, that's real high end. Well, I don't bother "thinking" that all the time: it's just there as a matter of course.
For listening during conversations or vacuuming or other chores I have a second little system in the same room which is astonishingly good. But for serious listening the high end system only..... and no regrets!!

Stress, sinuses, tinnitus -- the state of any of these affects what I hear and how I hear it. Dave

PS And there's always earwax build-up.

There is no "bad listening" from my system. I always think to myself: wow, that's fantastic sound, that's real high end. Well, I don't bother "thinking" that all the time: it's just there as a matter of course.
For listening during conversations or vacuuming or other chores I have a second little system in the same room which is astonishingly good. But for serious listening the high end system only..... and no regrets!!

There are definitely physiological aspects that affect our listening. The most obvious is when we have a cold (as Shadome pointed out) and our ears are stopped up. Imagine now, what if your ears were stopped up, but you didn't really have a cold and didn't recognize it? Your system would sound muffled just as if you had a cold.

I know there are things that I do that have a dramatic effect on my listening. If I haven't had enough sleep things don't sound very good. If I haven't excercised (I have no idea why this has an effect, but it's pretty profound for me, particularly at the high frequency). After flying my hearing is not as good (and I wear ear plugs to reduce this effect).

My system sounds better at night when the lights are just right. It doesn't sound as good when bright sunlight is coming thru the windows. My wife and I both agree on this phenomenom. We know it's not "true" but it's real to us. This is why I suspect that many tweaks and upgrades don't really improve the sound but we think they do and therefore may be worth it. Humans are weird. Audiophiles are weirder still.

Guys saying that it might have something to do with your emotional state at that particular moment. Due to the higher stress level it might just not be enough to overcome our desire to distance ourself from difficult situation.
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Night time might also have something to do with it.
I am not sure if it has anything to do with the power but I also enjoy it more offten during late hours.

I think the power grid is quieter at night as is other interfence--such as road noise. Road noise you may not hear directly but the vibrations through the road--particularly if you are not too far from a highway is pretty amazing. So night listening being superior is something I would guess most of us experience--I do.