Neutral electronics are a farce...

Houston we have a problem. Most recordings, including many of the ones audiophiles cherish, actually invert polarity.

Geoff, I have no knowledge of the polarity database you referred to just above, but I would wonder how the polarities it alleges for the various recordings were determined. Was it all based simply on what sounded "right" to the individuals who created the listings? Or did they go to the trouble of examining waveforms on an oscilloscope or a computer? And if the latter, were they thorough enough to examine the phasing of each of the different instruments and/or singers on the recording?

My understanding is that the majority of recordings are neither inverted nor non-inverted. Instead they are a conglomeration of different sounds that are likely to have been mixed together with each of them being phased essentially at random relative to the others.

Take a look at this photo of one of the "state of the art" mastering rooms at Abbey Road Studios, which one of our members called attention to in another recent thread. After what has been captured from a multitude of different mics has been put through all of that equipment and subjected to mixing, compression, limiting, equalization, and most likely numerous other effects, it’s hard to imagine how the end product can have any semblance of meaningful phasing, inverted or not.

It would be a different story, of course, with the relatively small number of recordings that have been engineered with just two or three mics, and with minimal post-processing.

Also, since you mentioned database statistics for the DG label I’ll add, as you probably realize, that over the years many and perhaps most of their recordings have been notorious for heavy-handed multi-mic’ing. With literally dozens of microphones having been used on many of their orchestral recordings, as I understand it. Requiring, btw, a mixing console even more elaborate than the one shown in the photo I linked to.

In any event, though, there are countless other ways in which the recording and mastering process can be less than ideal. Why focus on this one?

As for the other issue that has been under recent discussion in this thread, I too am confused about what the speed of sound in air has to do with amplifier circuitry.

Regards,
-- Al

Al, Here’s the link to the polarity database that George Louis compiled. Draw your own conclusions. The reason I brought this up on this particular thread is because you had just asked what the speed of sound had to do with the price of spinach. Which was actually the question I asked last week on another thread and which Roger answered. The connection of course is that Roger claims that the speed of sound in air should be preserved by the amplifier. With inverted polarity, with the trumpet being sucked instead of blown it’s almost like the Acoustic Waves of the musician’s breath and coming from the trumpet are traveling backwards. So forget about keeping the velocity of sound in air consistent (Roger’s term is Mach 1) between the recording venue and the listening room. Obviously there are other potential issues but if 80 or 90 percent of audiophile type recordings are in fact R then that would be big news. And bad news for Rogers claim that his amp, the way it preserves the speed of sound, is the key to getting "live" sound, since statistically on 20% or so of recordings are in correct polarity.

The situation is further complicated because some recordings that are inverted R will play as N on some systems, since in those systems there is one component that inverts polarity.

http://ultrabitplatinum.com/the-polarity-list/

geoff kait
machina dynamica
no goats no glory

Atmasphere do you know if the MLP label recordings were "inverted"?

I've never heard anything about that.   My understanding is they have the "holographic imaging" the best ones do because they were miked very simply for that (2 or 3 mikes for natural stereo live recordings).

Did they know of and play phasing tricks in the production?

How about more modern champs like Mapleshade or Dorian?

I couldn't say. What I do know is that if you want to do a really good recording, you keep things as simple as possible.

Al, Here's the link to the polarity database that George Louis compiled.  Draw your own conclusions.

The conclusion is of course that this is bunk. George would have had absolutely no way to know one way or the other! One time he came into our room, proclaiming that our system was out of phase (it happened at the time that we were playing Canto General which I had recorded). So I flipped the phase inversion switch. At that point, upon not really hearing a difference, George said that you could not hear it on analog recordings. I had the CD on hand so we played that. Same results. So I'm just going on personal experience here- George had and has no way of knowing so you can ignore that database.

Atmosphere, in George’s defense many systems at shows are not broken in at all or/and are not set up properly, thus it can be rather difficult to tell the difference in sound. In other words, just because he was unable to tell the difference on that occasion doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t usually hear the difference between R and N. Can you hear the difference between R and N? I trust you’re not saying that the whole polarity issue is bunk. It wouldn't take that much trouble to double check some of the labels or titles that George Louis includes in the database. As I said of the few he lists as N Mapleshade recordings IMHO do sound like they are almost certainly N.

Thanks for the responses, Ralph & Geoff. I read through Mr. Louis’ introduction to the polarity list. He makes clear that all of the entries in the list have been determined by him, simply by listening and "discerning polarity by deciding which polarity sounds more like live music." The only recordings he appears to recognize as being comprised of a mix of sounds encompassing both polarities are Phil Spector’s wall of sound recordings. Given those facts, as well as the incident Ralph cited, I would have to agree with Ralph that the list should not be taken seriously.

Also, in the case of preamps which provide polarity switches, and accomplish polarity reversal in the analog domain, I wonder if in many cases those who report major sonic differences when changing the setting of that switch are actually hearing differences in the sonics of the preamp itself, resulting from the change in circuit configuration that occurs when the setting of the switch is changed. At least, that is, in the case of preamps having unbalanced internal signal paths, where accomplishing the polarity reversal might involve switching an active stage into or out of the signal path, or some other circuit change that might have audible consequences. (That concern would presumably not apply to balanced designs such as Ralph’s preamps, where the reversal can be accomplished simply by interchanging the inverted and non-inverted signals at some point in the balanced signal path).

Geoffkait 03-03-2016 4:47pm
The reason I brought this up on this particular thread is because you had just asked what the speed of sound had to do with the price of spinach. Which was actually the question I asked last week on another thread and which Roger answered. The connection of course is that Roger claims that the speed of sound in air should be preserved by the amplifier.

Hopefully Roger will provide further clarification, as a claim that "the speed of sound in air should be preserved by the amplifier" (that being Geoff’s restatement of Roger’s position), or to use some of Roger’s words earlier in the thread, "emulating the properties of air" and "addressing the delivery speed" are statements that have no meaning as far as I am concerned.

Regards,
-- Al