Absolute Polarity - Anyone else can hear a significant difference?

[tuga]

If your file playback software or CD player doesn't have phase-inversion capabilities Archimago's piece links to a website where a pair of sample files (one inverted) can be downloaded:

https://sourceforge.net/p/playpcmwin/wiki/AbsolutePolarityListeningTest/

 

[GT]

Simply not true. I was using a Garrard/QUAD33/303/ESL57 system from 1974, I found that by changing the polarity of the speaker connections changed the sound very substantially. Why? I was confused. The penny dropped that classical music sounded distanced on some recordings but not others. This was important to me and I had to indicate the polarity on each sleeve to get the correct presentation. In 1994 I found the same problem with a Naim CD3 player and did the same.

I no longer use LPs and in 2007 found that to my relief a CDX2 showed no difference when swapping speaker leads over.

Speculation or experience?

You are confusing several different aspects of phase here. Firstly you have the very complicated relationship of phase with regard to the recording and how it was recorded, this has been described up thread. Then you have to ensure that you have phase coherent speakers, as in all drivers are connected in the same phase to enable you to hear the differences in phase. This will allow a positive input signal to move the loudspeaker cone (or panel) forwards and not backwards. This is to ensure the speaker is Phase Coherent, or to have Absolute Phase.

Then you have to ensure that your amplifier chain maintains absolute phase for both channels, as sometimes different amplifiers (phono amps, preamps & power amplifiers) often have a reversed phase output. So incorrect absolute phase/polarity becomes a system issue. Phase in amplifiers changes according to the type of gain stage used, and also the number of gain stages used in each amplifier component. As a rough guide - an odd number of stages normally inverts the phase, and an even number of gain stages maintains phase through the amp. However, the only real way of knowing is to put a signal from a signal generator into the amplifiers input and compare the input to the output, as shown in the diagram below. If the waveform between input and output is identical and rises and falls vertically, then your amplifier is phase coherent, as shown in the bottom diagram. If the output signal is 180 degrees from the input signal as shown in the middle diagram, then your amplifier is inverting absolute phase.

Bottom line: what phase sounds best to you, make a note of it so you can repeat it again, and remember to enjoy your music...