Directionality, Fuses, Demagnetizing, Warm-up: Tweaks Matter!

Every once in a while something comes along that, while not at all new, really drives the point home.

Went to listen to some music the other night and it sounded just plain awful. Grainy, distorted, recessed, muffled, confused (don't know how else to describe it), and with a woody tonality as if coming out of an empty roll of paper towel. To top it all off this was with a brand new (to me) interconnect known from experience to be genuine reference quality and a whole lot better than what it had replaced.

What happened?

Well first it helps to know the norm: warmed up amp, always-on stage and motor controller, demagnetized and anti-static sprayed system, stable everything. 

But on nightmare night: Everything off for a week (vacation) with no warm-up. A Blue Quantum Fuse blew and had to be replaced with a stock cold zero-hours factory fuse. To top it all off the wild-card, unknown to me at the time (bone head mistake) the new interconnect was going the wrong way. Oh, and stone cold from having sat on the porch all day.

This all produced a sound and an experience so horrific it was hard to think about anything else for the next 24 hours. By then all the factors and mistakes (direction!) were clear but it still seemed unlikely any combination of these was going to ever get this anywhere near back to where it was. Which would be a disaster, considering the new interconnect, a Synergistic Research Resolution Reference MkII ought to be elevating to a whole new level. Despondent don't even begin to cover it.

Next night, first thing, fix interconnect direction. Warm up the amp (only thing turned off), demagnetize, spray anti-static, sit down and.... wow now this is more like it! In some ways still not quite there (only 24 hrs on the fuse, which is still stock factory fuse after all) yet in other ways clearly better than before.

All from correct signal direction and a few tweaks. Stuff a lot of people still have a hard time believing makes any difference at all. Transformed literally unbearable into eminently enjoyable. Two additional days later, doing nothing but letting things settle in, and the sound is truly exceptional and in every way just a whole lot better than before. As was to be expected given the new SR interconnect. When its in the right direction.

Are there truly people out there unable to hear this? Or is it that they are so sure of what they think must be that they've never actually tried to discern what is? A little of both? Or completely different?