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From "The Deafness of Today's Recording Industry" in the current issue of Positive Feedback Online:"If the polarity is reversed, or if the recording is simply recorded "out of phase", a key aspect of the live performance is blunted. Most of the recording industry ignores this question of polarity."
I had a look at 50 speakers reviewed and measured in Stereophile, only 10 had all drivers connected in the same polarity. Which in turn means that when you invert polarity during playback, you won't hear the difference in most of todays speakers. If on the playback side manufacturers ignore the question so evidently, why should the recording industry introduce polarity standards?By the same token, of those 40 speakers only a handful were time-aligned. Time-alignment produces a subtle but clearly audible effect. Why is time-alignment so evidently ignored, even in the most expensive speaker models?
Follow Ups:
For some unknown reason you have deleted your post so I post my reply here.I went to the IEEE website and downloaded the paper in pdf-format. I had a look and to be sure I used the Adobe search function:
the term "polarity" is not mentioned. The paper further does not describe listening tests where signals other than artificial or synthesized were used.
What conclusion was I supposed to draw from this paper considering the current context which is consumers/music lovers/audiophiles listening to MUSIC.
Klaus, please note the date of the paper's publication. We had not refined the terminology yet. However, 'VII Monoaural Phase Sensitivity' is a good start. This starts on page 1344.
After this, why not contact Manfred Schroeder and ask him yourself. He hangs out in Germany somewhere. In fact, one book by him says that he spends time in Berkeley Heights, CA (hey maybe that is near where I live) and Goettingen Germany. Of course, this was a few years ago.
It's not a matter of terminology. Phase inversion is described, but for the second of two test tones which are then played in combination, such as in chapter "F".I have no doubts at all that polarity inversion is clearly audible with test tones but the question is, how relevant are test tones for music lovers? And Schroeder simply doesn't mention listening tests where music was used.
We know about Greiner's results where "inversion of acoustic polarity is clearly audible for some intruments played in some styles and for some listening situations" and where "polarity inversion is not easily heard with normal complex musical program material, as our lage-scale listening tests showed".
Lipshitz also has performed tests with music, not only test tones, so the results of these tests would be interesting. But since Clark is reluctant to provide that information...
Oh, now: 'Absolute polarity exists but it's not important!' Next, you will have invented it.
Re: 'Absolute polarity exists but it's not important!AS a matter of fact, yes, that is essentially the core message. When controlled listening tests show that polarity inversion is audible on some selected signals but not on normal music program material, then I ask you why should those people who do listen to normal music program material worry about polarity?
Or is there something I'm still missing?
Klaus: There are three phases to a new idea.
1. It doesn't exist.
2. It exists, but it is not important.
3. We invented it.
Europeans are especially adept at this, from my experience.
I was only reflecting the 3 times some European engineer took my friendly input and ran with it, without reference to me. It has not happened as much in the USA, percentage wise.
The 3 phases of an idea is in 'Murphy's Laws', and is a standard parable in the engineering world.
What does that have to do with the issue being discussed and my questions? Please note that FACTS can convince or good reasoning. So far, I'm not seeing any of those here.Please answer the question, why should anyone bother if polarity inversion is audible only with test signals? And what does the Schroeder paper tell the reader about polarity?
Just read and think about your most recent statements about absolute polarity. The answer is there. If you are so dense that you cannot accept absolute polarity and that it might be important to some people, well, tough nuts! You are ignoring what I have known and worked with for more than 30 years. It is just a waste of time to put any real effort to get you to appreciate this, and I have better things to do and say.
And you still did not answer my questions. What does the Schroeder paper say about polarity inversion on real music, because that's the only issue that matters here.Read after me : I DO ACCEPT ABSOLUTE POLARITY. I also accept that it might be important to some people. However, unless there has been provided solid evidence in controlled listening tests using real music played through appropriate audio systems I think that these people are subject to self-delusion. Self-delusion in the sense that they might use, unawaringly, audio systems which make polarity inversion easily audible by adding e.g. distortion.
Sorry, Berkeley Heights is in NJ, far far away from mere CA.
.
.
Hi
I read your post again and had a few thoughts.
Loudspeaker drivers are not as simple as a Battery where there is a clear plus and minus.
When you take a battery and touch it to a woofers terminals, it either moves in or out depending on its polarity. Right here one departs from “simple” because some manufacturers make the red terminal such that positive make the cone move out and other companies, it moves in.The next step away from a “battery” and towards how they work is to now keep in mind that while at 0 hz or DC, it is easy to see what the cone does.
With audible sound, now one can’t see that relationship.
A loudspeaker driver like a woofer has an amplitude response curve AND a phase response curve.
Normally a woofer’s acoustic phase is anywhere from near +90 degrees below the box cutoff to –90 degrees mid band, rising to zero at Rmin.
So, what “polarity” or phase the woofer is, is a variable which is dependant on frequency.
For a sealed box at least one can say the acoustic phase will always be within +90 to –90 degrees.
What might not be obvious is that a lagging phase is the same as a time delay which increases with decreasing frequency.
A woofer takes an instantaneous broad band signal and reproduces the highs first, then the mid and then the lows, all spread out in time relative to the original.Now, add a crossover, each section also has an amplitude AND phase response, these are added to the responses of the drivers so what you really have is the sum of both sets of magnitude and phase.
Then connect the second driver to the crossover and unless the sources are less than ¼ wl apart, they do not add uniformly / coherently and the sum is direction dependant.Normally it is assumed that these kinds of problems are not audible, a position taken in marketing products as the solutions have not been achievable until DSP or novel designs came along. Also, if one sets up a computer to manipulate phase alone and compares A vs B, one would conclude that these things (once at a low level) are not big while they are audible. Conversely, if one builds actual speakers with the same phase properties, one would conclude the effects are much larger.
The gap between the two (it seems to me) is a result of the fact that one also hears the self interference at the speaker which in addition to causing the phase issue, ALSO exists in X, Y and Z and so alters the radiation in all directions. I think we can hear that interference as it allows one to localize the source.
The more coherent I have been able to make the sources, the less able you are to close your eyes and identify “where” the speaker is.
This is also accompanied by what sounds like the sound getting simpler, having less “features” but also sounding more real at the same time.
I tried to post about this in more detail on our form, if the spammers don’t have the doors clogged again.Lastly, a humorous situation exists now that people are starting to pay attention to acoustic phase. Many computer based measurement systems (like MLS) have a plot for acoustic phase and yet, when one compares those measurements to ones made with a systems that actually has a phase comparator (TDS), the results are sometimes totally different.
Many of the non-TDS systems produce a phase plot, which is the minimum phase interpretation of phase. This is fine for most things like crossovers and eq but is still not exactly the real thing.
Hope that helps,Tom Danley
time alignment can be important but other design considerations might have more effect on sound quality I keep all designs in phase and as close in time as possible.
d
Probably for many the price point is the greatest concern with getting the drivers to integrate better meaning they have to ignore polarity.I think your findings should be made public and that all speakers should list whether polarity is maintained throughout the crossover.
One would think that if perfect frequency response, timing, and phase were important, the sound of most speakers would converge at a certain price point. You would expect at, say $100K, most speakers would sound similar. They don't, thus illustrating your point that most designers do not care for audio perfection. No where is it more obviously illustrated when In Fremer's review of the Vandersteen Quattro and he said it was more detailed than his Wilson's priced at a much higher rate. Look at the cost differences, high cost is not a prerequisite for phase and time correct speaker systems.If you look carefully, you can find phase and time correct speakers at very affordable prices. Old Quads, Spica's come to mind: not exorbitantly priced speaker systems at all.
The reason why misaligned speaker systems proliferate is that the average consumer has not developed their listening skills. Just stand along side any busy thoroughfare and listen to the typical car audio system as the cars roll on by. Or, audition the typical surround sound system in most big box stores. Volume seems to have replaced the need for quality: boom and sizzle are thought to be detail. How many actually listen to an unamplified concert these days?
Well, they are already, sorta, you simply go to Stereophile and look inton the measurement section. It's all there.As for speaker manufacturers providing that sort of information, yes they should, along with a complete set of measurements (amplitude response on and off-axis, waterfall plot, distortion, step-impulse response, group delay etc.). The fact that they don't is suspicious.
It might only make half your record collection sound better, for free.
Only if one has speakers where all drivers are connected in the same polarity. 80% of the speakers aren't, so why bother?
Because 20% of the speakers are . Including mine, for over 30 years. So, half of my record collection sounds better, for free.
20% is a figure based on the 40 speakers I looked at. I'm sure that if you looked at all 350 or so speaker reviews/measurements in Stereophile you'd get a figure much lower than that. Simply because there's not many speaker designers who care about that. Thiel and Dunlay were such designers.
all there is to your argument that we shouldn't bother about polarity? Because not everyone has speakers that will reveal it?That's really all you've got?
Remarkable.
you finally got my point, almost. I did not that thay YOU shouldn't bother, I said it's quite understandable that the recording industry doesn't bother, and that for decades. For the rest, there's still not enough solid evidence that polarity inversion is`audible on properly designed speakers. So if polarity inversion is audible with sub-performing speakers only, why should anyone should bother at all?
Actually for years at least the Japanese did bother. As Clark Johnsen has pointed out, almost all vinyl and at least the early CD's from Japan alternated absolute polarity every track change, and reversed the order on the flip side or half way through the CD. Why? So every system would be able to hear atr least half of the recording in correct polarity?
Obviously somebody over there thought absolute polarity was significant as that took considerable work for something "that is almost imperceptible to most individuals."
Not the case.
wrote Clark in his book. Before making such statements, maybe he, or you, should first determine whether you can hear polarity inversion under controlled conditions with adequate gear.
"Adequate gear"
If yours are low distortion and time-coherent, feel free to use yours.
I'll continue to listen (and switch the speaker cables when the polarity is obviously "wrong" to my ears).You continue NOT to listen and believe what you like. It's a dogma thing for you, as should be obvious by now.
Deal?
BTW, a primary reason why polarity is so easily detected on my speakers is that they are (duh) polarity-coherent AND there is no crossover between the mids and tweeters and only a minimal one between the woofer and the mids. Low distortion and time-coherence are only part of the story. As the tech rep responded when I queried Gallo about why I could tell the difference so readily, the Ref 3s are "extremely sensitive" to polarity, sez he. Would that it were not so. You think I LIKE being able to hear this?
. . . to those who don't even bother to listen. But I have yet to see convincing scientific evidence of that.
In regards to the recording industry:The pop recordings often mix polarities for the sound effect. Aphex Aural Exciters invert phase, add a bit of EQ in order that singers have that husky voice. Compare early Linda Ronstadt (Stone Poneys) to current material: same as Barbara Streisand and many other artists including Neil Diamond, Michael Crawford, etc. Phil Spector's 'Wall of Sound' is having the background instruments recorded out of phase to the singers in order to give that big, but vague, soundstage.
Check out The Commitments director's cut's comments. He states in no uncertain terms that the instruments were played back out of phase in order to accentuate the lead singer's voice. The LP soundtrack is very different sounding from the soundtrack on the movie itself.In the case of Classical music, polarities become a mixed bag with the advent of heavy multimiking. The mikes are very close to the wind instruments because they are very few in numbers. They are further away from the string instruments because of the larger ensemble. The difference in spacing coupled with the fact that the mikes are mixed in real time, leads to phase and polarity anomalies. You can't have an oboe miked 4 feet above the player and then mix the sound with the violins which may have the mike 15 to 2o feet away from the players.
Even in the older period where the mikes were minimal, polarity was an issue. Ever notice all the Decca recorded RCA's are inverted in respect to the American recordings? Most Decca, Philips, and DDG recordings are inverted, as well as US Columbia's. One cynic told me that was because Philips wanted to make sure no one would ever blow their speakers from too much volume.The fact of the matter that most European labels are seemingly inverted to, say, a Mercury, seems to point out problems in recording convention. This is quite evident if the Decca master tapes were sent to RCA and played back on American equipment.
Early mono Ampex reel to reel machines had pin 3 as the hot on their XLR's. I have RCA LP's, say like the Reiner Scheherazade, where the 1s/1s pressing is phase correct, but the 1s/7s has the 7s side inverted. This points to equipment issues as there is no reason why later masterings should have their polarity changed.
The answer is not to accept the status quo as Clark has been stating. Education and awareness can create change. But, if no one else cares, there will be no reform.
Here you are describing phase issues, not polarity. This is one of the reasons a heavily multimiked classical recording has always sounded bogus: the sour, phasey comb-filtered sound.Some companies (such as DG) are going back to their multitrack masters and applying time delay to the spot mikes to bring them in time with the stereo pair. (DG can do this as they have always made a "map" of every mike's location for every recording they made.) This makes a huge improvement. I wish we could take the technique to other companies' output!
That's interesting that DDG would apply time correction for their recordings. My understanding is that most companies mixed their recordings down to only a few channels on their masters. It is true on the digitally recorded masters utilizing hard drives, it is possible to preserve the multiple channels of information.
Since you are so familiar with the DDG process, you surely must have access to deeper information about their methodology? I would be very interested as I do not hear such a correction being used by, say, the Ondine (ex Philips) engineers.
I would also suspect that such methodology would not be applicable to the very early DDG recordings where the master tapes were essentially mixed in real time.You can all it what you want, but I tend to lump most time issues as being phase and/or polarity related. What may be initially a phase issue manifests itself as a polarity issue on playback. The real issue is the timing of the notes which reaches the listener's ear. When they are not consonant to what occurs in real life, they are simply wrong. Call them what you will, but the reality is that when played back on a stereo pair of speakers, the information is confused and does not represent the true tonality and articulation of the instruments (or vocals) being played. Any human does not hear sounds simultaneously from two or more spots up to 50 feet apart
If Decca could get the vast majority of these issues cured with their well known use of the Decca 'Tree' and still have the use of spotlight mikes, I can not see why modern 'engineers' can not do the same. The mike positions in sites like Kingsway Hall were very well documented.
I have yet to see a mixer which offers time adjustment for more than two channels. I see polarity switches on many, but very few real time mixers with digital time delays. I have not kept up with the latest gear, however, and I would welcome information to the contrary.
"That's interesting that DDG would apply time correction for their recordings."It's one of their reissue series the name of which is escaping me right now. But I've heard before-and-after on two or three of them, and the difference is not subtle. They do increase the prominence of the stereo pair as well, but the main thing you hear is the absence of comb-filtering.
"My understanding is that most companies mixed their recordings down to only a few channels on their masters."
Your understanding would be wrong. There are plenty of multitrack digital tape machines out there and have been for a long time. The last time I did a Pops recording I stopped counting after 38 microphones, and it was clear that the mixing and balances were to be done later.
"Since you are so familiar with the DDG process, you surely must have access to deeper information about their methodology?"
Well, going by what DG says, it's quite simple: they simply plot the distance between each spot mic and its instrument(s), then the distance between the stereo pair and that/those instrument(s), calculate the difference and apply time delay to the spot mics so the arrival time for each is the same. I know that Denon used to do this in real time at the recording session for their multitrack projects, but I'm unaware of any other company doing it.
"I would also suspect that such methodology would not be applicable to the very early DDG recordings where the master tapes were essentially mixed in real time."
Obviously.
"You can all it what you want, but I tend to lump most time issues as being phase and/or polarity related."
Obviously "time issues" will be either/or, but why not be precise? I'm not calling it "what I want," I'm calling it what it is .
"What may be initially a phase issue manifests itself as a polarity issue on playback."
No. Polarity implies the relationship between 0-degrees and -180 degrees, either/or. Phase refers to any number of conditions in-between. Since the thread is nominally about polarity (actually it's about KlausR's preference for "scientific evidence" to the evidence of his own ears, but never mind) it makes sense to call it by its rightful name.
"Call them what you will, but the reality is that when played back on a stereo pair of speakers, the information is confused and does not represent the true tonality and articulation of the instruments (or vocals) being played."
Correct, but you can have a recording that is being played back with the correct polarity yet still has jumbled phase issues due to multimiking. See why precision is important here? Most folks are confused enough about these things that we ought not add to the problem, and clarity of expression helps.
"Any human does not hear sounds simultaneously from two or more spots up to 50 feet apart."
No, but neither do humans hear sounds from 12 feet apart from a stereo pair of omnis a la Telarc, nor do we hear them from zero feet apart as with a coincident pair. Perhaps the closest we come to the reality of what we hear is from an ORTF pattern, but that method has other issues, primarily a lack of low bass response.
Neither do we hear sounds from an orchestra from 10-15 feet away--where stereo pairs normally can be found--but that's because microphones don't process out the excessive reverberation that human brains do at our seats in the hall. This gets complicated fast, and it's worthwhile not generalizing excessively.
"I have yet to see a mixer which offers time adjustment for more than two channels. I see polarity switches on many, but very few real time mixers with digital time delays."
I presume DG worked with separate units. And while the usual mic positions for many recordings may well be known, they cannot be known exactly unless the company was as anal as DG was when they made them!
The presence of polarity switches on mixers is largely to spare the engineers from having to track down the odd miswired mic cable in the middle of an expensive recording session. It also allows them to do things like mic kick drums or snare drums from both sides--a common practice in the studios--flipping one of the inputs' polarity.
From what I've understood from psychoacoustic literature, but then I didn't look and read specifically about that, is that resolution of human hearing is about 1 ms, which relates to the circumferential distance between the ears, so that arrival time differences smaller than that wouldn't be detectable.I'm not sure whether or not that is true for all frequencies. In any case, many speakers have group delays way above that value so from that point of view alone they can;t be considered as accurate.
Well, obviously the industry does, both on recording and on playback side, maybe because there is not enough convincing evidence (normal music played through low-distortion, time-coherent speakers in domestic listening environment). I agree, keeping polarity the same throughout the recording procedure is being accurate to the original signal, it doesn't do any harm so why not have a polarity standard.But by the same token one could speaker manufacturers to build time-coherent speakers only. The difference is audible, albeit subtle, and time-coherence is the only way to accurately reproduce a signal, it doesn't do any harm, so why not?
Apparently no one cares, When Dr. Heyser was president of AES, that would have been the very moment for Clark to try and get a peer-reviewed paper on the subject published. Did he ever try?
"When Dr. Heyser was president of AES, that would have been the very moment for Clark to try and get a peer-reviewed paper on the subject published. Did he ever try?"No he didn't, but he can see very clearly that Klaus's usual research acuity is operative here.
Dr. Heyser *was* elected president, but unfortunately he died before assuming office.
Good try on the attack, better luck next time.
I'm generous, you get the point.Now tell us what the score was in Lipshitz' DBT where musical excerpts were used.
Instead you demand of me that I go off to Canada and beg to look in Stanley's lab books.Ridiculous!
In his AES paper on midrange phase distortion Lipshitz cites an Audio Amateur article (Muller, TAA vol. 11, p.64 (1980 Jan.)) where the results of that two-part DBT (test tone + musical excerpts) were describes (at least that's what I assume).Now the questions:
Do you have that article?
Are the number of runs and and the scores for both parts of that experiment mentioned?
If your answer to both previous questions is yes, will you tell us that score? If not, why not?
and usually it works with those folks. So, as usual, I have to do it myself, find the answers that is.I'll keep you posted.
Remarkable. A speaker without the jumbled phase issues of many commercial speakers is improperly designed? Sub-performing? Ya learn something new every day.By the way, there is plenty of scientific peer reviewed evidence for the audibility of polarity. You just haven't done your homework. Why should anyone pay attention to you?
Feel free not to!!!Yes, there's plenty of scientific peer reviewed evidence for the audibility of polarity, I know that, but artificial test signals like asymmetric clicks are hardly what one is listening to. What I'd like to see is plenty of scientific peer reviewed evidence for the audibility of polarity where normal music material is used played through low distortion, time-coherent speakers in a domestic listening environment. If there is any and you know where to find it, feel free to post a list of bibliographic data.
Music waveforms are asymmetric, too. But one does not need a scientific test; polarity is plainly audible on music of all kinds, with all sorts of purist or multimiked recordings."If there is any and you know where to find it, feel free to post a list of bibliographic data."
See above. Otherwise, do your own homework.
Meanwhile, if your speakers do not allow you to hear polarity, why not just relax and enjoy your music? Much more fun than telling others what they can or cannot hear. Or making wild leaps of logic about there being "insufficient evidence."
...the science there? I mean, to determine what's "solid evidence"? What are the criteria? Where are the papers in peer-reviewed journals that establish a basis for "solid"? You're a "scientist", so tell us where to look.Or does it just come down (again) to your opinion masquerading as authority?
nt
z
distortion amps or preamps, nor for any 'high performance' audio gear? If you are not interested in maximizing the performance of your speakers, then why bother with any other component?The situation reminds me of an incident I had with a local music educator. While a very good player himself, his band was extraordinarily both out of tune, and imprecise in its performance. When I commented about that, his reply was that no matter how hard he tried, some one would always be 'wrong' and if most of the players were playing imprecisely, the single 'off' player would be more obvious. His solution was to have them all play imprecisely, pandering to the lowest common denominator.
If you won't care, or don't care, take your choice, then a Bose Acoustimass system ought to be more than good enough. Still, I have applaud the fact that you did the research and have come to the realization of the extent of the 'faulty technology' being pandered to the public. We demand so much more from an electronics designer than from a speaker designer, but reviewers do not point out very obvious faults in speaker designs. The 'numbers' of many speaker designs, if applied to electronics, would have that designer laughed out of the business.
And yet, we turn a deaf ear to these issues. No wonder audio has been in a quagmire, and those know of and do not complain about factors like polarity are themselves responsible for the very mess we are in.
ranting again,
s
Is that good enough?
Tell us?
HiYep, no physical speaker looks like that (essentially perfect) and the minor pre/post ring on the impulse is a trait of a FIR filter, often used for this kind of correction.
My guess would be you have fixed the response down to about 15 – 20 Hz?What speakers are these and what dsp are you using if I could ask?
Also, how did you measure the speakers to derive the correction?I am working on an active version of the SH-50 which has FIR filters and am looking forward to hearing what they sound like fixed that way and tri-amped.
You can do a lot with DSP and I am about as far as I can go with physical placement and drivers parameters given what the horn has to do.
Best,
They use FIR filters, response is flat ± 1.5 dB down to 30 Hz, -3 db at 27 Hz, on demand they can go lower with decreased max. SPL.More here
HiThis would appear to be a DSP corrected loudspeaker yes?
Tom
z
Did you see that from the graphs?
c
nt
z
Over a year ago, I was stating what Klaus has written, but you argued that since recordings were 50/50 in their polarity (not something I said or has been true in my experience), that basically, polarity of recordings and speakers were not an issue and nothing needed to be done.Acceptance of the status quo was what you preached, and the most that you advocated was simply an addition of a polarity switch on a preamp. When I pointed out that many speakers have drivers in mixed polarities, you seemed to be oblivious of that fact. I honestly thought you were simply pandering to the interests of the mainstream speaker manufacturers,
What has brought about this change in view?
Hi KlausTime-alignment normally refers to the driver to driver relationship at crossover, it is not referring to how much spread in time a broad band signal is reproduced with.
Conceptually reproducing the input wave is something a speaker should do, feed in something with a complex waveshape like a square wave or music and that is what should come out right?
In reality the vast majority of loudspeakers spread out a signal so much in time that they cannot reproduce the waveshape. VERY few multi-way speakers do it at all.The subject of “absolute” polarity gets even more fuzzy when you consider that over much of its band, a direct radiating woofer has an acoustic phase which lags about –90 degrees but also swings to a positive values above and below that mid area.
So, while it is easy to see what phase a cone would produce when a battery is applied, for radiated sound in the mid band, the system is lagging ¼ cycle, half way between + and – absolute.
How about a full range speaker multi-way that has thousands of degrees of excess phase across its band, where would ”zero” be anyway? The problem is loudspeakers tend to have a time of origin that is frequency dependant.For more on the rarely discussed “time” aspect of loudspeakers, look up Richard Heyser’s landmark paper on “determination of loudspeaker arrival times”.
Preserving waveshape is something that has been a concern for me, here is one design which passes / reproduces a square wave (or music) from about 220Hz to about 2600Hz.
The first thread covers some of what needs to be done, the second explains how it works.
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=407&posts=3&start=1http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/pdf/danley_tapped.pdf
Frankly, there is little actual science applied to “home” speakers, most of the focus is on looks and things imagined to be important as opposed to research dwelling on the radiated sound.
Where the highest quality sound must be produced in a large space, one faces the same acoustical problems one has in a home except they are all larger, including the sound level that must be produced.
Best,Tom Danley
...speakers with decent phase response. We can hear so much more!Would that were a more often observed criterion.
"For more on the rarely discussed “time” aspect of loudspeakers, look up Richard Heyser’s landmark paper on 'determination of loudspeaker arrival times'." Even more helpful would be his September, 1979, paper in Audio, in which he declares that Absolute Polarity confusion is the single greatest problem facing audio nation. Clearly Heyser was not one to let poorly-designed loudspeakers stand in the way of useful scientific principle.
Hi ClarkWell some times I am afraid I come off like I have a technical woody about this (time) but maybe I do.
I met Dr Heyser about 20 years ago and he was a remarkable man.
I was lucky to be one of the every early TEF machine users and at an early Servodrive trade show, Don and Carloyn Davis (Synaudcon was highly behind the TEF) walked by the booth and Carolyn said “why don’t you come with us”. So seeing a chance to hang out with them on the trade show floor and avoid the drudgery of booth duty, I was gone.We eventually ended up going out for dinner at a fancy restaurant where Dr. Patronis, Dr. Heyser and a number of others were. So here I was with Don Davis, Gene Patronis, Richard Heyser and these heavyweights, wow. I said about three words the whole night and that was only when Don threw me a softball about the servodrive woofers..
Dr. Heyser and Dr’s Patronis were both Wizards, each spoke technical things so clearly that at least for that short time, I felt I really understood. Dr. Heyser was one of these guys who really had a calculator in his head. Several times when the discussion got loud I thought the waitress was coming to ask us to leave but she never did.
I went back to the hotel room to try to sleep and felt about as small and humble as one could feel, math makes my mind slow to a crawl, I felt like a bulldozer chasing a butterfly compared to those guys.I have wished many times he were still around so that I could ask him things, now that I have more understanding but still have questions.
A friend is in charge of the Heyser Library at Columbia College in Chicago, I had a chance to be look at his stuff. It was weird looking at his old test equipment and notes etc.Also kind of nice is with the new company I have run across some old acquaintances from then.
While Don and Carolyn retired from Synaucon, they still get to some trade shows.
DR. Patronis is retired (prof emeritus Ga tech) and lives near the shop and I have gone shooting with him a couple times while visiting.http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/forum/photos/show-album.asp?albumid=4&photoid=28
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/forum/photos/show-album.asp?albumid=4&photoid=41
Sorry for rambling but time and what is wrong with loudspeakers is “an interest” of mine.
Best,
While researching The Wood Effect I was granted what became a three-hour interview with Dr. Heyser at JPL. It was a mixed blessing. On the one hand he reconfirmed the paramount importance of absolute polarity as the single best means to achieve better audio performance. On the other, he blasted most of our high-end practices and spent quite some time on a blackboard disproof of the effectuality of AC cables.There was no stopping him once he got going on any topic; he brooked to disagreement either.
He also thought that c.1986 CD was a great advancement.
Still, he was spot-on regarding polarity.
Hi ClarkWow, cool story, I never got to talk to him let alone one on one.
You can imagine why I was concerned about us being asked to leave, Dr. Heyser was not the most verbal or colorful speaker at the table.On the CD, compared to what there was to record with before ones and zero’s, there is no question that it was better than all but the most expensive tape decks.
On the other hand, it was not something that was badly needed at the time and was foisted on us mostly because it offered a new line of stuff to buy.
In an effort to differentiate itself from the LP, CD’s were traditionally hotter up high to show off the difference
Also, like any new product, the point is to sell it and that does not involve talking about its weaknesses.
Personally, I would like to see 24/96 recordings as standard, there is something that is gone compared to 16/44.8 but the die is cast.
Now we have to wait until they decide what we need to buy next.
Sadly the music industry in its on going effort to cater to the least common denominator and gobble itself into obsolescence has become textbook big business.
While on the outside they cry “downloaders” are the problem, inside reports say the real problem is there are fewer and fewer bands people want to buy.
In my industry, there are fewer and fewer concerts because there are so many fewer record companies who are promoting fewer bands. Fewer chances are taken by big companies and so, there is less to listen to with more money riding on each recording.Now, most pop recordings are tricked out to the max, made using the last few dB of a CD range in order to sound “loud”, effectively fully defeating the advantage of CD’s but allowing for efficient smashing into those “superior sounding” MP-3’s.
The idea of realistic sound is not even considered, as that isn’t anything like what a “hit” sounds like.Polarity, well something’s like Drum hits and fireworks are asymmetrical and when a fireworks report goes off, it blows, not sucks..
Best,
Tom
...there is no question that it was better than all but the most expensive tape decks." Beg to differ. Thousands of careful listeners (and many not so careful) protested the intrusion of digital, hearing it as a degradation. Granted, we were mostly classical buffs, but even *real* rock'n'roll suffered in sonics.Guess you aren't an analog guy...
Hi ClarkIn any technology’s life, there are at first about 10% of the audience will use it, new adopters of technology. Later, on has 80% who will eventually use it and then you have 10% who will never use it.
I think part of what gave CD’s an early bad name was that play back decks were not all essentially the same (transports made by very few co’s), some things in the filters and electronics were very marginal and of course the recordings made to “sell” the CD were intentionally voiced to be brighter and CLEARER or at least remind people of that.
Personally I think the direction they really went was wrong with “how” things are recorded now. It ticks me off that they have so much to work with and do little to “capture” an event which has always been my thing.I used to record, still do, I still have a pair of Teac 3340’s, a Revox A-77 (now junk) and several others which were not at all shabby in the day.
I have gone back and listened to old tapes plenty of times.
Now, I am not saying ANYTHING about what the recording industry turns out rather that now, with a good sound card or modest MI setup, one can make clearer more natural sounding recordings than one could in the old days with the best home tape decks and new tape.
24/96 is audibly better than 16/44.8 down at low volumes; too bad the CD is set in stone in that regard.I wouldn’t say I am analogue or digital, either can sound bad or good both have limitations and flaws, I like what works for what I’m doing.
Best,
...doesn't CD have a claimed dynamic range of 96db? Shouldn't that be sufficient?
Hi Clark, E-statAs I recall 16 bits does describe 96 dB of dynamic range.
With the tapes to CD or digital to CD, there are many places for problems to enter in which are not necessarily related to the sample rate and density issue.I have a guess why 24/96 can sound better.
We hear loudness logarithmically while the Digital sampling process is linear.
So from a log perspective we see that half of the bits are devoted to describing the top 6 dB of dynamic range AND the lowest 6 dB is defined by one bit.
With decreasing level, the process is increasingly granular or step like.At low levels, it would seem that the granularity is audible and is why recording folks go with even more than 24/96, it makes keeping track of level up relative to zero dB (an ugly carbide hard wall in digital world) much less important.
Also who ever keeps spouting Nyquist this or that to show “perfect sound”, needs to be shown the light. That only applies to a stationary signal, in the measurement world, it is assumed you need a sample rate 3 to 5 times the highest F, more if you have a highly variable signal.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying digital is the end all, I would he happier if they had adopted 24/96 from the beginning but as it was, making 16/44.8 work on a consumer scale was already a challenge back then and many old CD players did sound icky when A-B’d.
I would use anything that worked better or had fewer tradeoffs, I don’t care if its digital, FM modulated tape or analogue or some new approach.
What ever is next, it, like everything else prior to it, will have its own limitations and flaws that the sellers will omit to mention.
Best,Tom
Bit strangulation at low levels certainly is a problem, but I claim that improvements ("tweaks") in the CD system render that meaningless. You have to hear it to believe it!In short, CDs may turn out to have been pretty good all along.
...24/96 is audibly better than 16/44.8 down at low volumes.Some here might think you're beginning to sound like one of those whacky and irrational audiophiles who just don't understand Nyquist. :)
Tom,
I'll have a look at Heyser's papers.The graphs in figs. 6, 7 of your SH-50 paper look very good, very similar to the same graphs of my speakers.
I think you're right with what you say about home audio speakers, it's correct for certainly the great majority. That's why I looked elswhere.
The effects of polarity switching, even with polarity-coherent speakers can be very subtle. The recordings themselves are not consistent, although many labels are MOSTLY consistent. Some discs have, e.g., the vocalist recorded in one polarity and the backup instruments in another, and this was intentional. Most important, If you don't have polarity switching available at your preamp, all you can do is switch speaker cables, a pain in the neck (I know whereof I speak).On the other hand, once you've heard and can detect "right" and "wrong" polaity, it becomes something of a curse -- you can't NOT hear it. I'm not at all sure that I wouldn't prefer speakers that mask the difference, unlike my Gallo Ref 3s.
I'm not re-opening yet another discussion about the audibility of polarity, for me there's not enough convincing evidence as to worry about that parameter.However, it has been shown that distortion makes polarity inversion more easy to detect, you are using SET, what about the distortion your speakers produce? What about time coherence? I see that you are using quite some tweaks, but I can't see any room treatment? Not important?
...are the numbers? The analyses? You're a "scientific" type; please explain to us dunces.However, all the evidence you may need is in the very book described in your referenced article; of the some eighty instances of "absolute polarity" appearing in the entire audio and acoustical literature (in English), academic and otherwise, through 1987, all but one were positive as to its audibility.
clark
As I'm browsing what I have about this polarity issue, I come across this :
"When you reverse connections at a loudspeaker, yes you reverse audio signal polarity. But you also reverse the direction the audio signal is applied to wire in the loudspeaker and to capacitors, inductors and resistors in the crossover. When you reverse wires, capacitors, resistors and inductors in the audio signal path, the result is an audible change in the sound."If this is correct, and I can't see any reason why it isn't, all experiments done hitherto are flawed from the outset. If you further consider the (asymmetric) distortion issue (LP playback, speakers)you have another basic flaw.
Now YOU explain.
Klaus
You avoided answering my question. What's the scientific basis for "convincing"? Surely it can't come down to just your own opinion? Give us some numbers, some analyses.
There was quite a long thread many moons ago on these pages, all that could be said has been said then. Nothing more to add.The purpose if THIS thread, just in case you didn't notice, was not to discuss audibility of polarity but to discuss why there should be a standard in recording industry when the overwhelming majority of home speakers messes it up.
Where can one read your rebuttal?
...I did indeed devote several paragraphs to the situation. "Where can one read your rebuttal?" You have the tools already: Google "doug blackburn" "clark johnsen". Result below.We still don't know your scientific basis for declaring evidence "convincing". Perhaps you shouldn't talk like that if you want to maintain your, ah, reputation here -- or at the very least stand up for your pronunciamento.
clark
...I'm one to complain to moderators; I prefer having your rudeness on record.Besides which, clearly, you have not read the referenced text -- which at the time was lauded by Stereophile (JA), Audio Magazine (Ed Long), Speaker Builder, 21st Century Science & Technology and many others. The text was not "highly contested", just the opposite.
Get the facts straight before your next outburst of envious contumely.
Let's see:"The main theme of this book deals with absolute polarity, a very important aspect of sound reproduction which has been much neglected."
"Near the end, Johnsen states his major premise: 'Only one concept must be grasped: Electricity can reverse its phase, while music cannot.' The problem with this statement, from my viewpoint, is that the author uses the word "phase" instead of "polarity" to describe what can happen to the electrical signal. He does this elsewhere in the book also, which can tend to confuse the very issue he is trying to clarify. The problem is one of terminology, not of substance."
"Although I agree with the major premise of the book -that absolute polarity is extremely important- I must say that pages 67 to 74 are full of erroneous and misleading information about loudspeakers. Unfortunately, it is a case of trying to explain, in technical terms, why some loudspeakers behave the way they do, without having the expertise required to do do. Since the author is no loudspeaker system designer and quotes the writings of others who are not designers either, perhaps this excusable."
"The last two chapter are an odd mixture and, therefore, difficult to describe. There is an interesting list of recordings, each marked with the author's own polarity convention, which is relative to the first record for which he determined the correct polarity. It would have been better if he had determined the absolute polarity of his own system before he began marking his collection. As it is, his "normal" and "reverse" designations might be reversed! Oh well, at least they are consistent, which ir more than the whole audio industry can say for itself."
"The tone of Johsen's book is rather quixotic, and I don't think the author will mind me saying so. Rahter, I suspect he will take this a the compliment it is meant to be. This is a potentially controversial book, and it is quite clear the author intends it to be so. I found it fun to read."
Johnsen's book had been reviewed in a negative manner by Pr. Dan Shanefield in Boston Audio Society Speaker. Passage from Clark's reply to the review: "A negative review [Editor's note: two, actually, as well as a generally positive (Ithought) one] of my first and only book recently appeared herein."
"I propose that from this point forward the entire audio industry take a basic step which is capable of improving the quality of the listening experience without adding any cost to that product."Care to guess, what that step may be?
"With constant improvement in audio systems we have now reached the state where many persons can readily perceive the coloration caused by improper polarity in the reproduced sound... Aware of the distinct audibility of polarity since 1974... I now publically call upon the entire audio industry... to acknowledge polarity as a psycho-acoustic parameter and identify the polarity convention of their products."
That was 1979. But people are still in denial, still fighting the obvious. Sad, sad, sad.
clark
In his Audio article Dr. Heyser makes reference to Hansen & Madsen, On awal phase detection. These authors have used an artificial signal, just like Wood. Even with that signal they pointed out that "improving the transfer characteristics of the [test] loudspeaker resulted in weakening the subjective perception of the change in the applied signal."However, that paper addresses phase, not polarity. They did find that polarity inversion was audible, using a test signal and an additional control unit which allowed to reverse polarity, but they did not specify whether or not it was audible on all speakers (the poorer and the better ones) used for the tests.
Dr. Heyser mentions the tests he has performed himself, but he does not specify what speakers he has used and what test signals.
You see what I mean?
can be done with a $300 receiver and the equivalent priced speakers.
I use a pair of Sonance Symphony 622C's. They are not time aligned, but sound pretty coherent and they are hooked up to a bottom of the line HK receiver.I believe speaker designs have deteriorated in that more (numerically) modern designs incorporate polarity inverted drivers. Older designs were much better aligned, at least in my experience.
I blame Harry Pearson of The Absolute Sound for this. He raved about the Proac Super Tablette which has the woofer inverted in polarity to the tweeter. 'Great Dimensionality and an unbelievably large soundstage' he gushed. That led all the manufacturers to adopt the woofer inverted design for smaller speakers. Monkey see, monkey do, or, in this case, Monkey hear, monkey do. Apparently HP can not hear polarity and phase issues.
Then some designer came up with inverting the midrange in a three way system, using the inverted frequency mid range to cancel out the overlap in the range of the adjacent drivers. A more even amplitude was claimed, which is fine if music was merely only sine waves (it ain't, folks!). Somehow it seemed to coincide with the rise of the PC and every one has been claiming 'computer designed' crossovers, as if just being available as a computer simulation makes it more correct.
It is true that an inverted midrange adds emphasis on the highs and the lows. Most novice listeners have difficulty in hearing the notes in the middle where most of music's fundamentals lie. A high frequency emphasis is heard as detail, and, of course, big bass is all about that visceral impact.
Ever notice that most speakers labeled as being analytical seem to suffer from an inverted driver? And then, I note the rise of the single driver speaker systems seem to coincide with the proliferation of the mixed polarity designs. There are many people who subconsciously, perhaps, know that something is wrong with many multi driver designs.
In a modern world where even singers use a synthesizer, and virtually no instrument is not electronically enhanced, few remember or even know what live unamplified instruments and singing sound like. But small changes in balance in the inverted designs can strike a certain chord in many listener's minds, leading to an endless chase for 'perfection'.
But you are most correct in that no one wants to point out speakers with phase, timing, or polarity errors. As you state, the simple tests results in Stereophile magazine point out many timing issues, but the magazine reviewers either choose not to point out problems or perhaps, sadly, they can not hear the problem. Or, perhaps the possible loss of ad revenue is more important than furthering the advance of audio.
It clears up a lot and answers a lot more.And if anyone needs further evidence that It's a dogma thing for our friend KlausR, read below.
For those who think that they hear absolute polarity, they should contemplate the following.Dan Shanefield, BAS speaker, vol. 17, no. 3 :
"once you see evidence of an additional factor which might really be causing the observed results, you should never ignore it in further studies. Instead, it must be carefully eliminated".
It has been shown (by Shanefield 1995 and Furindle 1976) that introducing distortion into the playback system makes polarity inversion more audible.
This reminds me of people claiming to hear the benefits of supertweeters. Then Kaoru and Shogo demonstrated in their AES aper that this is due to intermodulation distortion.So if it is possible that audibility inversion is audible because of good ole harmonic distortion, then that parameter should be investigated. But no.....
One answer to that problem is DSP. How many consumer speakers use DSP ?
Fortunately there are mags like Stereophile and Soundstage that provide meaurements. The ideal response curves are known from literature, such as JA's AES paper (available on Stereophile's website). One look at the graphs and you know the value of the speaker. But no....
Klaus
I have been subjected to 'tests' every time I go to CES. Unfamiliar material, unfamiliar equipment and have been asked to say correct or inverted after a minute or so of listening. I can hear polarity with a $300 receiver and speakers as well as in a high end preamp and amp combo in the $10K range with speakers in the matching price range. I'm sure their HD is quite low by anyone's measurement.You are searching for an easy out. The solutions are not quite so simple, but one would assume that you will have to start somewhere. I use real live listening sessions with real unamplified music as an absolute. You can measure away, buy expensive test instrumentation, but inevitably the final judge is the human ear (and I am NO golden ear!).
With all the technology which is currently available to us, I can not fathom why designers can not create a better speaker system which is phase and time correct and with adequate frequency response. The only answer I can see is lack of public interest (read $$$ here).
Maybe but without knowing a threshold you can't be sure. As far as I know such a threshold has never been determined nor have there been studies w.r.t how system distortion affects audibility of polarity inversion. Anyone serious about this issue would either conduct such studies himself or wait until such studies have beed conducted and solid data are available.A lot of advanced technology is available and only some use it. Speakers which are phase and time correct and which have adequate frequency response do exist, look at the ones I have. Given the fact that many audiophiles are willing to spend a lot money on speakers I frankly cannot understand why there's not more designers who implement technology that allows true improvement.
Stu
Klaus, PLEASE read up on the state of human hearing in: 'Models of Hearing' by Manfred R Schroeder, in the 'Proceedings of the IEEE', Vol. 63, NO. 9, September 1975.
Heyser would agree, if he were here.
30 years ago: He said something like, "That should satisfy the little ........" or somesuch, but in a more polite way. Then, I said, "But Richard, who reads the' Proceedings of the IEEE' but you and me?" I was right, unfortunately.
I knew that Klaus would not bother to read up on the subject!
Please tell me where is polarity mentioned, where are the listening tests w.r.t aubility of polarity inversion using musical excerpts described. Tell me because I cant find any.
Klaus
"Although I agree with the major premise of the book - that absolute polarity is extremely important..."That of course is the crux of the matter.
"I must say that pages 67 to 74 are full of erroneous and misleading information about loudspeakers."
Not true; that section lambastes all loudspeaker designs in which phase is gemischt, disallowing the perception of polarity. Read it yourself.
The nonsense continues:
"The last two chapter are an odd mixture and, therefore, difficult to describe."
Perhaps for Mr. Long. Here's the description: Polarities on records etc. are found by experiment to fall 50/50 into both camps; proof is ascertained that this must be so .
"There is an interesting list of recordings, each marked with the author's own polarity convention, which is relative to the first record for which he determined the correct polarity."
No! Never, ever said that that polarity was "correct". In fact I pointedly avoided that.
"It would have been better if he had determined the absolute polarity of his own system before he began marking his collection."
Ah! Poor Ed... Over and over the point was made that systems do not possess their own "absolute polarity". Yet by way of excuse, people still do make that error.
At least Audio printed a huge color picture of the cover!
Did you catch John Cockroft's review in Speaker Builder? "I have become a disciple of Mr. Johnsen's dissertation." He grasped all the points that Ed Long missed.
Likewise David Shavin: "R.C. Johnsen has fired a barrage at the audio-recording industry. A combination of moral outrage, hard work, and intellectual acumen, mixed with wit, humor, and even street-theater antics, makes this 98-page book a rare and refreshing exposé, guaranteed to miss the audio industry's puff sheets."
On the other hand, John Atkinson reviewed it in Stereophile: Excellent, superb, a tour-de-force. But perhaps you'd rather concentrate on the negative?
clark
c
> On the other hand, John Atkinson reviewed it in Stereophile:
"Excellent, superb, a tour-de-force."
My September 1988 review is reprinted at www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/988awsi/index1.html .
Scroll down the page to the section on Absolute Phase.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
From the Stereophile review by JA:"Work by Stanley Lipshitz in the late '70s (footnote 9), using carefully organized double-blind testing, confirmed that a reversal of absolute signal polarity will be subtly audible on music to a 99% confidence limit! (Indeed, it is one of the few things that can be reliably detected with double-blind testing.)"
This statement is just... false. That's not what Lipshitz demonstrated - he showed that absolute phase was audible with 99% confidence, but using test tones (which everyone can hear the difference on) and musical selections (which evidently no one could hear the difference on). Combining data with 100% success with data with 50% success gives a very high confidence that there's an effect if you do enough trials, and that's what happened there.
s
You said that your book was lauded in Audio Magazine, when reading E.E.Long's review, I don't get that impression. That was the very point I was trying to make.Obviously also DDD Shanefield has got it wrong being "polarity deaf" ? Again, someone who did not laud.
Btw., did you write a letter to the Editor to clarify all those issues you are mentioning here and now?
.
No, why should I, everybody is entitled to have an opinion about your book.However, JA is misleading the reader when paraphrasing from Lipshitz' AES`paper on phase distortion : "Work by Stanley Lipshitz in the late '70s, using carefully organized double-blind testing, confirmed that a reversal of absolute signal polarity will be subtly audible on music to a 99% confidence limit."
Whereas the Lipshitz paper states the following: "The authors have demonstrated the TWO-TONE experiment described above to numerous people on different systems. No one has ever failed to hear the timbral change with phase, and discern the polarity reversal on this signal with unvarying accuracy. Indeed, in a double-blind demonstration to 11 members of the SMWTMS audio group, the accuracy score was 100% on the summed 200-Hz and 400-Hz tones over loudspeakers, and overall, including musical excerpts, the results on the audibility of the polarity inversion of both loudspeaker channels were 84 correct responses out of 137, this representing confidence of more than 99% in the thesis that acoustic polarity is audible."
I suggest that the original text is radically different from what JA writes in his "as wee see it". Deliberately or not, JA is providing misleading information to the reader.What was the score of that part of the DBT where musical excerpts were used?
So "subtly" it can't even be heard:
See link for the actual results of the study Atkinson was referring to. With music the score was 60 / 113 = 53%. That can reflect the result of mere guessing and provides of course no proof whatsover of any audibility; rather the opposite in all likelihood is the case.
That is, unless Atkinson is referring to another study by Stan Lipshitz that I'm unaware of. Barring that, why grossly misstate the results?
TL
...the audibility of Absolute Polarity on music. You choose to ignore his record here. Why?Of course we all know why!
It contradicts your erroneous case.
Also you continue to ignore Dr. Heyser. Why?
Because you have to!
Nor have you provided us yet with a scientific definition of "convincing" and "solid".
Looks rather hopeless, having a rational dialog with someone who dismisses the evidence.
What were the scores of that part of the DBT where musical excerpts were used? THAT would be evidence that is interesting and relevant for consumers. THIS seems to be the only evidence obtained by Lipshitz, however, without a score, what do we know about the value of that evidence? I do not ignore his record, just tell us what the score was and we talk further!
Since we are speaking of presenting misleading information, tu quoque, filii:In your AES convention paper, page 13:
"The authors have demonstrated the TWO-TONE experiment described above to numerous people on different systems. No one has ever failed to hear the timbral change with phase, and discern the polarity reversal. Indeed, in a double-blind demonstration, the accuracy score was 100% [on a two-tone test] over loudspeakers, and overall, including musical excerpts, the results on the audibility of the polarity inversion of both loudspeaker channels represented confidence of more than 99% in the thesis that acoustic polarity is audible."
What you have omitted here is that, overall, only 84 out of 137 reponses were correct. How many response were correct when musical excerpts were played?
Further, in a letter to Audio Magazine 1994 that passage was further reduced to:
"In a double-blind demonstration....including musical excerpts, the results on the audibility of the polarity inversion of both loudspeaker channels represented confidence of more than 99% in the thesis that acoustic polarity is audible."You didn;t even mention that part of that confidence was based on TEST TONES.
What evidence? There's that Lipshitz SMWTMS audio group DBT of which the score is not known and that's about it.
I don't count all those experiments where artificial signals were used for obvious reasons. I don't count your own experiments for the reasons outlined before.
Sufficient to say, their experiments satisfied them as to the efficacy of Absolute Polarity in bringing us all "Better Sound for Free", and they did not hesitate to trumpet this discovery to the world from every location they commanded.Pity the world won't listen.
Do you have a Cassandra complex, Clark?
Clark, try and read carefully what I write.B.F.Muller, "Third World: The Scientific Subjectivist, Audio Amateur, vol. 11, p.64 (1980 Jan.).
Lipshizt, A little-understood factor in A/B testing, Boston Audio Society speaker, vol. 6, (1978 March)
Lab books indeed!
> You said that your book was lauded in Audio Magazine, when reading E.E.Long's review, I don't get that impression. That was the very point I was trying to make.Hey, they gave it two pages and a color photograph.
> Obviously also DDD Shanefield has got it wrong being "polarity deaf"? Again, someone who did not laud.
Dan Shanefield is one of only two people on record (so far as I know), besides yourself, who dismiss absolute polarity. Besides which, Dan has been outright rude to my face -- not a pleasant person.
I notice that you have nothing to say about Atkinson, Cockroft, Heyser et al. Perhaps just as well, for you.
> Btw., did you write a letter to the Editor to clarify all those issues you are mentioning here and now?
No. I was advised that Ed Long was their golden boy at that time and they wouldn't print it. Besides, the review sold a few hundred copies, and who am I to disagree with success?
You did not adress the components-in-the-crossover issue. What about those?Your "evidence" is not convincing because of the flawed experiments. Read the old thread and you'll find all the arguments.
Klaus
...yourself. And a rather haughty self, at that.We still await a scientific, or better a numeric, basis for your assertion. You're the so-called "scientist"! Come on, act like one.
The evidence is overwhelming: The polarity call for any track on any medium remains consistent through any arrangement of gear, capacitors, wire etc. Were those the operative agents, no such consistency would prevail.
You're snatching at defeat, again. Give it up.
I don't think a discussion with you about polarity would be particularly fruitful. Sorry, I should have known better.
. . . to make him bother actually listening for himself.
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