Home Critic's Corner

Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry.

Re: It would help me if you could explain what you mean ...

Polarity is difficult to demonstrate by writing, and needs to be experienced. That has been my experience, and in various conversations with designers and engineers, while most are very familiar with the technical ramifications of polarity, very, very few have actually auditioned systems in and out of polarity. For example, I spoke to the VP and president of California Audio Labs once and asked why they had a polarity switch on their automotive DACS, and none on their home units. Their reply was that no one used it or had asked for it, including all of the reveiwers. One user I met refused to use the polarity switch simply because the light came on and that additional light bothered him.
You are not alone in finding that swapping speaker wires seem to be far more troublesome than the gains in performance seem to be worth. I simply find it quixotic to find that listeners are willing to spend vast sums of money on audio gear which often have little semblance to reality (at least to acoustical instrumentation). Much dissatifaction with audio gear can be traced to this issue, which the ear can recognize as being 'wrong'.

STu


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Kimber Kable  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
  • Re: It would help me if you could explain what you mean ... - unclestu52 11:10:44 01/23/07 (1)


You can not post to an archived thread.