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RE: Unlikely to be possible

"I agree! switching speaker terminals with SE amps is not a valid way to invert polarity. When I do it, I often hear a difference but when I use a method that inverts in the digital domain I do not."

That's very interesting, that you can confirm that! I did, in the meantime, try some googling on the topic, and I found some similar kinds of suggestions out there; that it could be something to do with the distortion profiles of the SE amplifier and the loudspeaker acting either "in parallel" or "in anti-parallel."

I wonder, then, what evidence there is for audible differences that are actually due to polarity reversal of the audio signal from the signal source? Have you yourself, I wonder, ever heard differences when inverting the signal, as opposed to the speaker leads? It seems to me it would have to be an incredibly subtle effect, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say that it must certainly be inaudible, I would be very surprised if it could be reliably detected with normal kinds of music and listening environments.

I can imagine that most people who try the absolute polarity reversal experiments do it by reversing the polarities at the speaker terminals, and for an SET amplifier I could easily believe that would have audible effects. And indeed, one might very well want to make the polarity choice that sounds better (whatever that means!). But that would be unrelated to any absolute polarity issues in the individual recordings. (Though it might be that for other reasons, the sonic signature with one choice of speaker polarities might sound more attractive with some recordings, and the other polarity choice might sound nicer for other recordings.)

Chris


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