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Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ. |
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In Reply to: DGG and polarity posted by banpuku on December 18, 2014 at 07:26:24:
Having a "polarity" switch could be a useful thing in that it might allow one to hear any recording in the polarity that sounds best to our ears. But I'm willing to be that, in many cases, "best" = "personal preference" rather than "polarity correct". Certain aspects of the recording will sound better to many of us with polarity inverted, while certain other aspects of the recording will sound better with non-inverted polarity. Recordings are such fake or inherently *incorrect* THINGS to begin with that, many times, correct polarity really doesn't matter all that much.The most sweeping and vital gestures contained within the recording are revealed when the soundscape before us seems to mimic that found in nature IN THE OVERALL SENSE. If polarity then becomes a relatively minor issue, it's not because it does not matter, it's because there are bigger fishes to fry. It'a a crazy mixed up world out there, and we are sometimes forced to focus on the bigness of the picture rather than on the tiny-ness of the details.
People will prefer *incorrect polarity* to *correct polarity* at least 50% of the time (that's my guess, at least) - not because correct polarity is not an aspect of the truth, but because NO system ever sounds exactly like real music does. We can fiddle with our polarity switches all day long without getting our systems to sound exactly like live music does, so our minds seeks solace in the powers of imagination. I will always be forced to rely upon my imagination to "fill in the dots", when all is said and done. And, the biggest dots are not the polarity dots. I'll be hurting myself if my mind is focused on that polarity switch, because what my mind really wants to do is to focus on the more sweeping and vital gestures contained within the music - gestures which hinge more upon dynamic response and lifelike spectral content than they do upon correctness of polarity.
What might be sad and disappointing is, sometimes, an unavoidable part of living in this world. So, the real secret to listening pleasure lies in our openness to suggestion. Things will never perfectly *right* or perfectly natural, no matter what we do with our polarity switches. There is a point at which trying to minimize the *wrongness* in our system becomes more of a distraction than it is worth if/when it gets in the way of our seeing what is *right*.
Remaining open to suggestion and seeing the big picture is the "correct polarity", as far as my mind is concerned. I've tried listening to speakers that are more "time/phase coherent" than most (Royal Device Laura w/ Miranda) in "absolute polarity correct mode" (in which the entire system has been tested for correct polarity from the AC outlet to the final connection at the loudspeakers), and even when I thought that I could tell the difference between "correct" and "incorrect" on a recording my thought was, "Gee, this recording might sound slightly more realistic this way, but I could easily fall in love with this music either way..." It's simply not that big of a deal, at least not to me.
Edits: 12/19/14 12/19/14 12/19/14
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- RE: DGG and polarity - genungo 01:54:35 12/19/14 (0)
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