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In Reply to: Mike, do you hear polarity difference? nt posted by sser2 on March 21, 2007 at 12:24:08:
Yes, there certainly is advantage to keeping positive-going audio waveforms positive all the way through to playback. Flipping the signal "upside-down" causes a general smearing of the imaging, transients and depth of the recording. This effect depends on the accuracy of the monitor speakers of course.As a general rule, we run polarity checks of our recording systems from microphone on out to make sure nothing gets flipped along the way. We also have the opportunity to see the audio waveforms throughout the editing, mastering and authoring of projects.
Best Regards,
Follow Ups:
..I have not had any trouble hearing it on Thiels, Magnapans, and Spicas. A little more difficult on my IMF's. And not very apparent at all on my older Advents and EPIs.
Harry
I listened to Maggie 20.1s and 3.6s in a system where the polarity could be switched at either the preamp or CD player (both Mark Levinson), via their remote controls, and couldn't hear a bit of diference. My Gallo Ref 3s, on the other hand, make it painfully easy to hear the difference. "Painfully" because I'd rather they didn't :-)
I had a pair of older maggies...before they went to the ribbon tweeter. I suppose that could make a difference, espec if the Maggie ribbons are wired out of phase.
Harry
I had sorta assumed they WOULD be polarity-coherent and it really surprised me that they weren't. You may well be right about the older ones.
Ever play a sine wave through a Maggie with the grill cloth removed? The panel does NOT move in a push pull movement. Instead it generates a series of waves, similar to whipping one end of a long string: you will see a waveform moving down the length of the panel. It is very different from an Apogee or ET planar magnetic.
That makes two of us.Thinking about it further, it may also have to do with how the Maggies are positioned. It's possible that the backwave either reinforces or fights or mixes somewhere inbetween, and this may affect the ability to perceive a polarity change.
Harry
nt
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