Isolation Ward From ebony pucks to magic foil, mystical and controversial tweaks.

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RE: Absolute polarity . . .

Posted by unclestu52 (D) on September 13, 2009 at 20:56:16

In Reply to: Absolute polarity . . . posted by caspian@peak.org on September 13, 2009 at 18:25:53:

I can hear, and I claim no special ability, differences in absolute polarity with even a $300 stereo receiver (HK) and a pair of $400 speakers (Sonance 622C), since my speakers are relatively phase and time aligned ( not perfect but close enough). Modern commercial recordings routinely mix polarity in order to achieve certain sound effects.

The question is if you do not "hear" such effects then certain tweaks will have little auditory benefit. Using an excuse that the majority of listeners can not hear the difference would be akin to marketing a water downed wine simply because the majority of the population can not tell the difference anyway.

In my years of running an audio store, education leads to recognition, but few are willing to undergo the education. Some of my regular customers, without perfect pitch at all, can quite easily recognize absolute polarity issues, but the problem, IMHO, is that many speaker designs employ driver assemblies with no semblance with time and phase regularities. One need only glance at the impulse tests given by Stereophile magazine to realize that, and that alteration of time constants is absolutely not what happens in real life.

Again, I reiterate: if your system does not have transducers with relatively time and phase aligned drivers, the "search" or "quest" for perfect sound is one doomed to failure.

As such, mixed polarity recordings abound, simply because listeners are too confused or lazy to comprehend the issue. For pop recordings absolute polarity is often used, as earlier stated, for sound effects. If you want an ethereal effect, invert the polarity. If you are singing a duet and the featured singer may not be as good as the partner invert the voice of the partner so that it smears the diction. A good example is the movie "The Commitments". The recently re released Director's cut, includes the director's comment that in order to make the singer sound really good, the polarity of the background singers and instrumentals were inverted to make his voice stand out.

However, the lack of knowledge of such effects exacerbates the problem. Producers use inversion even for orchestral music and classical recordings which shouldn't have to employ such "tricks". It also leads to listeners going on a absurd "quest" in search of the perfect recording and playback equipment.

The best example is the pronouncement of The Absolute Sound's editor claiming that the Canadian version of the Holly Cole Trio's "Don't Smoke in Bed" Cd was superior to the American. The trio has the piano in one polarity and the voice and bass in another. The Canadian version is simply reversed.

But again look at the impulse test results in Stereophile. The woofers are often many milliseconds behind the tweeters and often out of polarity. Do you see the magazine reviewers making any fuss about the issue? Most utter inane banalities on the quality of the sound, but are not really searching for constructive criticism. A speaker with a woofer retarded in time is often described as having big bass, simply because the bass notes stick out.

Some will claim that it can not be achieved, to which I simply point out that even the cheaper Vandersteen speakers achieve relatively accurate time and polarity alignment (not saying they are perfect as they have issues of their own).

Sorry I can not be an apologist for the general listener. If you search for "accurate" sound and spend thousands and still can not achieve it, then you are deserving for not educating yourself further.

Stu

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