Reversing Polarity -- Voodoo or Easy Tweak?

I thought Who was on second.

Eldartford, perhaps you are correct about mic placement, but if you are listening to a live kick drum you will surely be out in front of it unless you are the drummer and the sequence will always be one way or the other, and if you reverse it when playing it back it will sound different.

Herman...Both Hi and Lo signals are shifted 45 degrees at X/O, so the woofer/tweeter discrepancy is 90 degrees (for first order). In fact the discrepancy is constant at 90 degrees for all frequencies, but causes most problems around the X/O frequency where both drivers are emitting sound. With a second order crossover, 180 degrees of phase shift, there will be a deep sharp notch in frequency response unless one driver is connected with inverted polarity (or, as some might say, out of phase).That's why I like 24dB crossovers, where the shift is 360 degrees, so that sine waves are back in "phase" if you will pardon the term. Sine waves are a pretty good approximation of musical sounds, at least for a few cycles.

so that sine waves are back in "phase" if you will pardon the term.

I know what you mean, in and out of phase just seems to sound right, and any use of the term polarity with a modifier seems to sound clunky and incorrect.

Both Hi and Lo signals are shifted 45 degrees at X/O, so the woofer/tweeter discrepancy is 90 degrees (for first order).

I think we are talking about 2 different things here. My point was that all musical instruments produce harmonics in addition to the fundamental tone. So if the fundamental falls inside the passband it will not be phase shifted and if a harmonic falls outside the passband it will be, or vice versa. I think this phase shift in the harmonic structure will be audible. I haven't conducted any experiments to confirm this hypothesis.