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Still intriged by the phase inversion issue, I decided to do some decent experimenting. Started with ripping the CD layer from the remastered 'Brothers in Arms'. Using the program 'Audacity 1.3' I was able to invert the phase of four songs. Then I burned a CD for an A-B comparison between the normal and phase inverted songs. After carefull listening I gave it a 4-0 win for the phase inverted songs! I know that my equipment is set-up correctly, but it's a combi of different brands. Anyhow, I decided to invert phase at the loudspeakers. Then I put in the SACD layer of "Brothers in Arms"....Pfff, now I know what you americans mean by jaw-dropping. It's incredable, wonderfull, almost in tears. How big an improvement!!! I thought the improvement was must larger with SACD than with CD.
What about other SACD's? The biggest surprise was "So" by Peter Gabriel. A huge difference with what I was used to hear. Much more "space", relaxed listening. Use "Mercy street" to be sure your life is "in phase"!!
Other characterstics:
- more bass (I had to decrease to level of my subwoofer (getting an analog tap of my stereo signals)
- more natural gitar
- more clarity in vocals. I know now that John Hiatts father drove a deSoto in Thunderbird (for those who want to know!)
- in fact: the DSD mastered 'Master of disaster' was finally 'very well recorded'. I did not liked it before and did not believe in that Sonoma proces. Now I am Converted!!
- more analog feeling all over.I have two issues left.
The five SACD's I studied so far (Brothers, So, Sacred Love, Master and Lang2 Rachmaninoff 3 all sounded much much better. This is not in line with earlier statements in this forum that concerning phase it is 50-50% good/wrong recording. Does anaybody know two SACD's who are clearly 'out of phase' (for example within the living stereo series)?
Second issue: My equipment is set up properly. Yet it seems wrongly configured. Can that happen with different brands?
ADVISE TO ALL: experiment with your favourite SACD AND OPTIMIZE!
Heaven is missing a happy angel.
Berlin
Follow Ups:
Seems a nice topic to discuss. Thanks for all the advise. Anyone an idea about how to setup a polarity check for your system? I can imagine a cd burned with a positive puls (cooledit?) and try to measure it with a soundcard. But how to do the same for your tuner or turntable? Probably training your ear and spend a lot of time listining is the way to go. I discovered that sacd's everybody raved about, like Podger/Vivaldi or the telearc's and even the BIS/Brautigam discs sounded so much better. I think, with the Ziggy SACD at hand Prof. Higgins could pinpoint the excact street Bowie grew up in Brixton.
When the first Chesky recordings were released, they told everyone that they were inverted phase. I was working at MFA at the time and they had those first Chesky discs and the first Theta DAC which had a phase reversal switch (digital domain). When we would flip the switch to inverted the sound was slightly better....however, when we left the switch in the non inverted position and inverted the speaker leads (tube amps) the sound was jaw droppingly better. If you have a digital player or DAC with digital inversion switch or even an analog preamp with phase reversal switch.....try this experiment!
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You must always change BOTH channels to reverse Absolute Polarity, otherwise you are changing the channel phase relationship and your stereo image will be inside-out.Just to be clear, the correct absolute polarity is when a positive-going wavefront on the recording is reproduced as a positive-going wavefront from the speaker to the listener. Sometimes (but may be difficult to see) this is visible on the woofers with a bass drum "whack" in a classical recording or the kick drum in a non-classical recording. The leading edge of the "whack" should make the speaker move forward, NOT pull inward.
Best Regards,
Hi Michael, Thanks for your response. I listened all day yesterday, for the first time in some while, as the Ballet Orch has been going mega-fulltime!
I have Macintosh electronics, Sony CD and SACD players, and have never tried switching the speaker connections before, but listening with them switched was really great, for me in terms of bloom, depth, blend and richness of sound ( which I thought it had before!).
I'm looking forward to Monday when I can listen to the Cinncinatti recording of Bartok and Lutaslavsky(sp?).
Have been listening to Bill Evans "Portrait.." on SACD, and Kieth Jarret "Tokyo 96" on cd.
The sound is way richer, more blended, the image moves more into the room, giving greater depth, palpability(?).
Basically, it sounds Better. I'm going to leave it untill some thing sounds bad or werid! ( I switched both speakers).
I would agree, but interestingly, very early Chesky's were correctly phased on my system. After George Kaye redid the Chesky studios, the polarity changed, and that was after JD 63(chronologically, the Kenny Rankin disc)
Just my experience and , no, I haven't listen to any new Chesky recordings since they discontinued the LP's.
Stu
My eerience with the Dire Straits mirrors your experience, particularly when comparisons are made to the LP. Early dual layer SACD's seem to invert the cd section vis a vis the SACD layer. Curiously, the SAM Sung Blu Ray machine will invert the music in relations to virtually every other player I have tried (admitedly , not all: Marantz, MF Trivista, Sony machines). I have ecently listened to a Wuropean classical import (sorry I forgot the tite and label) but that SACD signal was inverted.
I posted this much earlier on the General Asylum and in the Video asylum, but you know who insists that the ratio is 50-50.
C'est la vie
Good listening and it seems that you are one step coser.
New players like the Marantz SA-7s1 and the German T+A 1250R have specific inversion buttons (the last also on the remote, handy for a A-B comparison). There seem to be people out there hearing the difference. My new player will definitely have such a button.I have red somewhere that some recordings have vocals flipped and instruments OK. Of course effects are more difficult to hear then.
If you're having polarity issues with so many titles, I suggest running a polarity check of your system. There is plenty of gear that, even though connected correctly, actually inverts polarity internally.I know for a fact there is nothing about the SACD format that inverts absolute polarity. The manufactured SACD ***exactly*** represents what was on the source master it was made from. I have put them up side-by-side on countless occassions.
I can't vouch for what any SACD player may do with the absolute polarity however. I do know that the EMM Labs player maintains the original polarity.
Best Regards,
Just checked: Nice to hear the Langlang Rachmaninoff 3 like you intended Michael. Many thanks for the excellent work I now fully appreciate!
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Refers to the fact that Michael was one of the recording engineers of this sacd.
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No, polarity is OK, only my equipment was wrongly setup. Michael said that he especially pays attention to this fact in recordings. Nice to hear people care!
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I have a Marantz DV-12S2 connected to a T+A 5ch receiver. All cables were connected as the colors prescribe. Nevertheless, it turned out that the polarity was inverted somewhere in the proces. I still don't know where. I only hear the difference when I inverted the cables at the speakers. Maybe the two brands use a different standard for polarity.
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I have a polarity switch on my new Marantz SACD player but I'm not generally hearing much difference so far, at least not a huge difference and only occasionally. With some discs I hear no difference at all. Shouldn't there always be a difference heard when changing polarity?
2/ Without intending any offence - are you an "audiophile" or a music lover who attends a lot of live acoustic music - or even better - plays acoustic music?I have found most "audiophiles" are listening for technical changes - not musical/emotional/realism/acoustic space changes, and hence miss the effect of optimised polarity/absolute phase.
And of course, if the speakers are not phase coherent - no one can get it!
Well, Allen, if I had (until recently) a 777 with your level 5 mods, would that make me an audiophile or a music lover? Just kidding!! Mainly I listen for acoustic space changes and I've read from others that the changes that switching polarity brings can be dramatic. I haven't heard a dramatic improvement as yet but maybe, as you suggest, I really am listening techinically rather than emotionally. My speakers are jmLab Cobalt 820's. If you wouldn't mind, could you please tell me more about what is meant by phase coherent and what I really should be listening for when I change polarity?
One way could/should/would simply, which way does it "sound more realistic"?Like - if you shut your eyes are you more "at the concert" or "less at the concert"?
And don't expect it to be a quick learning thing - it took me ages to be able to confidently choose - and if you find you are thinking too much, just ask a woman - mine has it 100% in seconds, everytime!
Phase coherent means the leading edge of a pulse/transient waveform has the same direction pressure from the speaker system at all frequencies.
Many multicone speakers have their midrange wired out of phase with the bass and tweeter - so a single unidirectional pulse does not come out as a pulse at all - but a mixture of positive and negative pressures.
Single cone speakers (Lowther etc), full range electrostats (ML CLS etc), most panels (Apogee & Magnaplaner etc) and some carefully designed multiway cone speakers (Theil etc) are phase coherent, most others are not - especially if the designer's main focus was achieving extreme flatness of frequency response.
OK?
I recently traded in my Apogee mini-grands for a pair of ML Summits. Do you know whether the Summits, which have a crossover frequency of about 250Hz to the cone woofers, are phase coherent by your definition? Thanks.
Unfortunately, because I changed all the electronics and speaker cables in my system at the same time I purchased the Summits, it is impossible to do a direct comparison with the mini-grands. One issue on which I am certain there is subtanstial improvement with the MLs is bass clarity and depth. Both the Apogees and the MLs are very fast and transparent, two qualities of great importance to me in a speaker. I believe that the MLs have an improved midrange--there is a certain realism and purity of tone in the ML midrange that is truly outstanding.
OK.First, after hearing from others I thought the changes would be dramatic, so I'm glad this is not a quick learning thing. I do hear subtle changes and yes, my wife is better at it than me. With some CDs we hear no difference. Why is that?
Now, if I'm hearing changes does this mean that my speakers ARE phase coherent? I just need to understand better why some speaker designers choose not to make speakers phase coherent and why phase coherent speakers are better, if that's what you're saying?
...so I'm glad this is not a quick learning thing <Totally depends on the person. Once sold a basic system to a client who played woodwinds in the Sydney Symphony - he could get it perfectly on 2 seconds of music - his "audiophile" friend couldn't get it at all - ever.
> I do hear subtle changes and yes, my wife is better at it than me. With some CDs we hear no difference. Why is that? <
Are they live recordings of acoustic music? If so, they have a chance of being phase coherent recordings - but multitracked studio recordings can have mixed phases - the LA recorded band out of phase with the NYC recorded vocalist etc.
> Now, if I'm hearing changes does this mean that my speakers ARE phase coherent? <
Maybe, but there are gradient s to phase linerity in spekaers.
> I just need to understand better why some speaker designers choose not to make speakers phase coherent <
becuase often they can get a far better frequency response flatness if they hook drivers up out of phase, or if they use crossover designs that are optimised for flatness and no phase response. Because frequency response is the spec that people know to ask about.
> and why phase coherent speakers are better, if that's what you're saying? <
I'm not saying they are "better" - just that for me they are better!
if you want a really simple test - go down to RadioShack and pick up a pair of 4 to 6" single cone full range speakers (drivers - not in an enclosure) for no more than (say) $15 each and mount them slightly off center in some largish sheets of plywood (say 3' x 3') - the larger the better. Hook them to you amp and use them to listen for phase changes - because as long as they are single cone (no crossovers or seperate tweeter involved) they will be as phase coherent as a speaker will get!.
Regards, Allen
Allen, thanks for the feedback.I checked with my speaker dealer and my jmLabs are phase coherent, but not time coherent because the drivers are on different planes. Something to look for next time, I suppose. How critical is this?
Thinking of 'tweaking' my speaker cables now by having the bananas removed and using bare leads. Why not?
...the ear is sensitive in this area, and most speakers have the woofer or woofer-midrange driver handling this area...you should hear something. A speaker that is totally phase-coherent will have the entire wavefront, regardless of frequency change, so it is easier to hear (perhaps because it is most "natural sounding").
But on most speakers you should hear something if you listen carefully in that frequency range.
Harry
Thanks Harry. Will do as you suggest. Have to also listen to my new Marantz burning in, especially in the lower midrange. Sounds a little nasty right now.
nt
Yes, there certainly is advantage to keeping positive-going audio waveforms positive all the way through to playback. Flipping the signal "upside-down" causes a general smearing of the imaging, transients and depth of the recording. This effect depends on the accuracy of the monitor speakers of course.As a general rule, we run polarity checks of our recording systems from microphone on out to make sure nothing gets flipped along the way. We also have the opportunity to see the audio waveforms throughout the editing, mastering and authoring of projects.
Best Regards,
..I have not had any trouble hearing it on Thiels, Magnapans, and Spicas. A little more difficult on my IMF's. And not very apparent at all on my older Advents and EPIs.
Harry
I listened to Maggie 20.1s and 3.6s in a system where the polarity could be switched at either the preamp or CD player (both Mark Levinson), via their remote controls, and couldn't hear a bit of diference. My Gallo Ref 3s, on the other hand, make it painfully easy to hear the difference. "Painfully" because I'd rather they didn't :-)
I had a pair of older maggies...before they went to the ribbon tweeter. I suppose that could make a difference, espec if the Maggie ribbons are wired out of phase.
Harry
I had sorta assumed they WOULD be polarity-coherent and it really surprised me that they weren't. You may well be right about the older ones.
Ever play a sine wave through a Maggie with the grill cloth removed? The panel does NOT move in a push pull movement. Instead it generates a series of waves, similar to whipping one end of a long string: you will see a waveform moving down the length of the panel. It is very different from an Apogee or ET planar magnetic.
That makes two of us.Thinking about it further, it may also have to do with how the Maggies are positioned. It's possible that the backwave either reinforces or fights or mixes somewhere inbetween, and this may affect the ability to perceive a polarity change.
Harry
nt
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