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In Reply to: RE: Hatfield vs. McCoy posted by Posy Rorer on July 31, 2007 at 19:21:55
That after JD-63 chronologocally, Chesky CD's have inverted their polarity? They were pretty consistent before and appeared to be in 'correct' polarity. After the Kenny Rankin disc, they flip the polarity relative to previous recordings, even on their second test CD. It parallels the change of their recording equipment to George Kaye's stuff, not that I am accusing him of deliberately inverting polarity. Of course I have only checked out the discs to the first 100 titles or so, so I cant vouch for any other discs.
One recording that I use, simply because it was highly recommended by The Absolute Sound is the Holly Cole Trio CD: Don't Smoke in Bed. Good test as it is a trio and not overly complex. The voice and bass are inverted relative to the piano. Now, it is interesting because TAS went on to recommend that listeners purchase the Canadian version because it had superior sonics. The Canadian version had the relative polarities reversed, and thus the piano is out of phase and the voice and bass are correct.
Of course, CJ's retort would be 'how do you know, there are no standards for polarity with a CD, etc., etc.' Of interest here is the relative polarity of the instruments in respect to each other. We have a basis for determining which is 'correct'. Seems to me an understanding of the issue would be far easier than to go searching for a Canadian pressing, spending the time and extra shipping to obtain essentially the identical sound if you just flipped your speaker leads.
See what I mean about naming recordings? I have never seen anything similar from CJ. My high school teachers always accused me of writing of "glittering generalities" and not substantiating my statements with specific examples. I may be bad, but others can be worse and may be deliberately avoiding the issue completely.
Now, these are examples I have posted in the past. They are nothing new. Some have confirmed my observations, and I have yet to hear dissenting views on these two observations. In my stating such observations, I am opening myself to dissent and critique, but that is a good thing. It allows the listener to replicate the observations and either to confirm them or to deny them. I am confident that with any phase and time coherent speaker, the polarities will be apparent.
Stu
Follow Ups:
> > That after JD-63 chronologocally, Chesky CD's have inverted their polarity? < <
Nope, I don't even know what JD-63 is. The only Chesky stuff I have is that test CD, and I think another sampler. I'm not sure how you would know, if there's so much controversy about whether polarity is correct or not. A polarity switch light on a DAC?
> > One recording that I use, simply because it was highly recommended by The Absolute Sound is the Holly Cole Trio CD: Don't Smoke in Bed. Good test as it is a trio and not overly complex. The voice and bass are inverted relative to the piano. Now, it is interesting because TAS went on to recommend that listeners purchase the Canadian version because it had superior sonics. The Canadian version had the relative polarities reversed, and thus the piano is out of phase and the voice and bass are correct. < <
I don't get how the CDN version has its polarities reversed. Their pressing may be different, but assuming they are using the same master tape, isn't the order of polarity locked into the recording?
> > Of course, CJ's retort would be 'how do you know, there are no standards for polarity with a CD, etc., etc.' Of interest here is the relative polarity of the instruments in respect to each other. We have a basis for determining which is 'correct'. < <
Which is...?
> > Seems to me an understanding of the issue would be far easier than to go searching for a Canadian pressing, spending the time and extra shipping to obtain essentially the identical sound if you just flipped your speaker leads. < <
Of course. But I can see where it can get complicated if "some" instruments have reverse polarity, relative to others on the same track(s), and pressings from some countries have inverse polarity, relative to pressings from other countries. And then you have take time to argue about which pressing is the "correct" polarity, when both contain multiple reversed polarities.
> > Now, these are examples I have posted in the past. They are nothing new. Some have confirmed my observations, and I have yet to hear dissenting views on these two observations. In my stating such observations, I am opening myself to dissent and critique, but that is a good thing. It allows the listener to replicate the observations and either to confirm them or to deny them. I am confident that with any phase and time coherent speaker, the polarities will be apparent. < <
BTW, I've always agreed with your assessment elsewhere, that time is the more important measurement than amplitude, and I can wholly believe that frequency response is only popular because its easy to measure. I think there are a lot of things important to audio that are either hard to measure or can't be, and yet all the focus is on those that are easy to determine, at the expense of everything else.
"silence tells me secretly, everything..."
Anyway, not necessarily. That's part of the joke -- on us all!
clark
JD-63 is the Chesky catalog number.In another post I made the observation that on my EZ CD creator software, if I placed a ripped file into the hard drive and then recorded from it later, the recording was inverted in relation to the original file. A friend with the latest Mac reports the same.
I do not know why this is so as I have never bothered with reading the lines of code. I can work around the limitations.
The point about the HCT recording is that in one orientation, the piano is extremely clear and in another it is muffled and distant. The same occurs for the other two members of the trio, inverted to the piano, of course. Which is correct: well, what instrument or voice do you want to hear? Now, overall, having two members of the trio in 'correct' phase is usually preferable than having only one.
A nationally distributed magazine and it's staff comes out and proclaims one version of the recording 'sounds' better. Had they been aware of the issue, such a statement would not have been printed. While I'm sure the Canadian manufacturer was pleased with a boost in sales, it confounds the general public.
The same occurs with LP collectors. Certain pressings are deemed 'hot' stampers and often become highly sought after pressings, commanding higher prices. Sometimes the differences may be simple polarity swaps. You can tell that I'm a cheapskate: I really do not like paying high digits for something which can simply be resolved with a flick of a switch at times.
Preserving polarity in a piece of electronic gear is fairly easy. Signal generators can produce impulse tests quite readily. It can be 'iffy' with recordings, but a careful engineer can maintain polarity all the way through the manufacturing process. Ray Kimber says the easiest way to insure it is to fire a cap pistol at the recording session. You have a reference for the recording which can be followed through the chain. You can even use an oscilloscope to measure it as it proceeds through the recording and playback chain. Of course denial of any convention or standard leads to many inconsistencies and problems.
The question is thus: do you wish to see a cure or not? If you do not care or refuse to accept that a solution can be worked out, then absolute polarity should not be bandied about, and it becomes a non issue. If you do care, then an understanding must be established, and then listeners will be able to recognize and create a demand for better recordings.
I do not accept the attitude that constant grumbling about the issue but doing nothing is somehow OK. If it is of importance, then education is the key, and that will lead to a demand for change. Nebulous claims and statements, like recordings are 50-50 in nature, do nothing to aid the situation, as most readers will have no desire to create change, having little to reference their listening preferences to. I find it imperative to have lists of recordings in one polarity as compared to others in another. That gives everyone a reference point from which to start.
Stu
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