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So much for my "Audiophile" pretensions

dumptruck said:
I guess I'll be the one (this time) to point out that whether or not absolute polarity is even potentially audible, it's completely random whether or not recordings are released in the same polarity as the original sounds, and approximately zero engineers worry about whether all of their tracks are in the same absolute polarity or not when mixing down. So, if you can hear it, good luck finding records.
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Good recording engineers/producers don't leave it to chance but we know from all-too-common results that it's not a 'given', rule #1 for anything is first you have to give a $#!t.
 
JohnVF said:
Yamaha had the ability to do that with some of their preamps, so it wasn't just 'audiophiles' that thought there could be a benefit. I never bothered, but I've wired my speakers backwards (both the same, just negative to positive) to make up for a preamp/amp having different pin standards on the balanced cables.
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Yeah, I never tried it, and didn't know if it would be beneficial or not, but the technology is always improving and sometimes people really do hit on stuff that matters. That was big in the 1970's for me. I think that is when a lot of the major improvements in analog equipment happened. e.g. the quality of a typical cassette deck from 1980 was substantially better than one from 1970, while a typical 1990 model really didn't sound much better than the 1980. Solid state amps improved significantly as well.

I was trying all sorts of tricks I read about in Audio and Stereo Review to get the best possible sound. Some actually worked.
 
G'day all, in response to an earlier post, yes I do drive a car with a manual transmission. :D :thmbsp: :yes: Regards, Felix aka catman.
 
I use to have an Optimus receiver and when the speakers were wired in phase, it never sounded right to me. I always wondered if this was intentional?
 
wlmill said:
I use to have an Optimus receiver and when the speakers were wired in phase, it never sounded right to me. I always wondered if this was intentional?
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I doubt this is it, but the "surround" systems and "extra wide soundstage" systems that have only the two front speakers fairly close together do their magic through messin' with phasing. Some are amazingly effective - if you sit in the sweet spot.
 
RobRoy said:
I doubt this is it, but the "surround" systems and "extra wide soundstage" systems that have only the two front speakers fairly close together do their magic through messin' with phasing. Some are amazingly effective - if you sit in the sweet spot.
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This receiver had dolby Pro Logic. That probably would explain why.
 
catman said:
G'day all, in response to an earlier post, yes I do drive a car with a manual transmission. :D :thmbsp: :yes: Regards, Felix aka catman.
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All you guys need is a Unix computer with no GUI. You can run X as a daemon and type in a command to start a browser.
 
dumptruck said:
I guess I'll be the one (this time) to point out that whether or not absolute polarity is even potentially audible, it's completely random whether or not recordings are released in the same polarity as the original sounds, and approximately zero engineers worry about whether all of their tracks are in the same absolute polarity or not when mixing down. So, if you can hear it, good luck finding records.
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At a listening session last week, we were playing a chamber music recording that was an all-tube single-mike recording. One listener, the only woman present, complained that it sounded wrong, that the sound wasn't coming out into the room properly.

The piece of equipment we were evaluating was a new, very expensive tubed phono stage, the Sonus Veritas Venice. Fortunately, it has an absolute phase switch on the front panel, so we flipped it and....there it was! That glorious analog sound. Then we changed the cartridge loading to the right value and it sounded even better.

Some people are sensitive to absolute phase, and some are not. On this level of equipment, it was clearly audible.
 
LazySounds said:
Over the last 6 months I have felt like I was becoming a bit of an audiophile.
Number one reason for this new found audiophilia, was that I have pretty much stopped using big fat arsed DJ needles for listening, I have been using an Ort 20 stylus instead.

About ten minutes ago I went to change the stylus on my Ortofon Concorde cartridge from the OM20 stylus (that I have been using to listen to all my LP's), to the Pro S stylus so that I could listen to some old Elvis 45's.

Turns out that about a week ago, when I last used the Pro S stylus, I never changed it back.

I've been listening to the Pro S 26µm Spherical stylus for the last week.
I have been happily listening to this ball point pen like stylus for the last week, confident that it was an Ort 20 stylus.

So I have just reclassified myself as an "Audio Peasant" existing in a world of mid fi mediocrity.
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Nothing wrong at all with a high quality spherical stylus.

I have Concorde and conventional OM 1/2 mount bodies. The three styli I currently use:

D25M - 1.1 mil Spherical
30 - Line Contact
40 - Fritz Geiger

The 30 and 40 are great for pulling lots of fine detail out records and they sound terrific. The flipside is that they also capture more of the fine tics and low grade crackle from lesser condition records. So I use the 30 and 40 only for playback of NM and VG+ stereo LPs, which thankfully comprise the bulk of my LP collection.

The D25M is used for older 45/33 Mono records. The wider stylus is a better match for the old mono grooves. When summed to mono at my phono preamp, the sound quality is remarkable, very little surface noise, and a rich and punchy sound. The D25M is great for VG and lesser condition records as well, it makes them sound better than they have any right to.
 
I wasn't impressed with my new-to-me C-J Motif MC-9 line stage controller until I realized it inverts polarity as do most C-J line stages and swapped the speaker terminal connections. That got the 'goodness' back that I had with the passive controller that didn't invert with the additional 10dB of gain the C-J provided for the C-A 640P.
 
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When I wired the speakers out of phase on the receiver I had, it still did not help. The stereo image was never right, no matter what I did. I guess that is why I don't have it any more.
 
When a pair of speakers are out of phase with each other, it is like nails on a chalkboard to me. It literally gives me a headache. However, I never knew that absolute polarity would have any audible effect. Now I have to do some experimenting on my own. Thanks!
 
I'm going to put my left shoe on my right foot and the right shoe on my left foot, will I have have trouble walking?
 
gusten said:
To me soundpressure waves don´t care about absolute polarity, so I don´t either.
gusten
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Then you do not understand the physics of acoustics. It is not simply a sine wave world, acoustic waveforms in nature tend to be much more complex and generally polar-asymmetrical.
 
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It is interesting after reading through this thread, how different our hearing is from one another. Being blind I rely on my hearing a lot. when I am walking, I hear reflections bouncing off of objects such as trees, cars, and walls. I can even hear when someone has their hand in front of my face. I can tell you how big a room is just by listening to it. I have been told, not all people who are blind can hear these things. I am greatful for this gift of hearing. I have often wondered if someone could be trained to hear these things?

I bring all of these things up because I feel it applies to what we are talking about. Not all people can hear content that is out of phase. I feel I have put too much of myself out here in telling you these things. Sometimes when I tell individuals I am blind, they get uncomfortable. This is something in my life I have always had to deal with. So if I have made any of you uncomfortable, I am sorry. I just wanted to give you my perspective on hearing because I rely on mine so much.
 
It is interesting after reading through this thread, how different our hearing is from one another. Being blind I rely on my hearing a lot. when I am walking, I hear reflections bouncing off of objects such as trees, cars, and walls. I can even hear when someone has their hand in front of my face. I can tell you how big a room is just by listening to it. I have been told, not all people who are blind can hear these things. I am greatful for this gift of hearing. I have often wondered if someone could be trained to hear these things?

I bring all of these things up because I feel it applies to what we are talking about. Not all people can hear content that is out of phase. I feel I have put too much of myself out here in telling you these things. Sometimes when I tell individuals I am blind, they get uncomfortable. This is something in my life I have always had to deal with. So if I have made any of you uncomfortable, I am sorry. I just wanted to give you my perspective on hearing because I rely on mine so much.
 
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