HELP w/Preamp Polarity Inversion Problem

Yes, switching at the amp will do it. Now the bad news - about half of the record and CD labels out there (RCA, Mercury, MCA, Warners, Capital, London to name a few) were recorded with the absolute phase reversed. These labels would sound better if you left it alone. Bottom line is that you need a component such as a CD player, DAC or "jitter box" that has a phase reversing switch.

Elgordo is correct about many recordings being recorded in reverse phase. On some very phase-coherent speakers, this will make a difference and having a polarity inversion switch on the preamp or DAC is a convenient thing to have. That said, many systems are not phase coherent, which makes switching polarity a moot point. Also, in my personal experience, the effects of polarity inversion are harder to hear in an all solid-state system than a system that uses tubes. But it appears that you are using tubes, so in your case, you may well hear the difference.

This seems to be one of those issues that can make you crazy if you let it. For example, I have two DACs and prefer the performance of one to the other. Unfortunately the one I like best lacks the polarity invert feature. Yet, my preamp has an invert feature but I don't use it because I feel that going through that extra switch degrades its performance to a small degree. As you can see, I just can't win!

Elgordo, your contention that the whole catalogs of certain record labels were issued with inverted polarity doesn't make sense to me, considering that many recordings have no absolute 'correct' phase orientation to begin with, particularly multi-tracked studio recordings. I for one don't believe the situation is so cut-and-dried, and that there will be variations from record to record, with many records not being particularly sensitive to absolute phase orientation at all. Just consider for a moment all the different studios and venues all the records from all those labels were recorded in - do you really think for a second that the absolute phase, if applicable, of all those master tapes was always 'correct' before the labels you mention pressed up the actual releases and supposedly 'inverted' them? Impossible. This has got to be a trial-and-error determination made by the listener, not some kind of 'rule' to be applied according to label name.

But Saxo, Elgordo is correct about your wiring question. With a single-stage tube preamp that is known to invert polarity for all signals passing through it, you should reverse your speaker leads black for red at either the amp or the speaker end, just not both. Without a polarity switch being available on either the preamp or your sources, I wouldn't worry about it further after that. As Plato's dilemma points up, if the supposed benefit of reversing polarity on some recordings is not going to outweigh the perceived effect of the switch used to compensate for it, then polarity must often be considered a not-too-crucial variable to begin with in many systems.