To: eldartford, Having worked with professional audio since the ’60’s I can assure you that the issue of polarity is not that bad. Until the late ’80’s all of Europe was pin 2 positive on any device that used an XLR balanced connector, America was mostly standardized on pin 3,than in the late ’80’s it was finally standardized as pin 2 representing an inward deflection on a microphone diaphragm resulting in a positive going signal with the speaker pushing outward with that same positive going signal. Now with that in mind you can see where when (phase timing), is more useful than which direction (polarity), the signal goes, when listening to music.
However you do bring up a very important point. There are tremendous differences in the quality of electronics. Some are for creative purposes but many are the realities of budgets. Just as in consumer electronics not all studio"s have the "best" or even close to best. It started with TEAC in the '70's bringing WAY down the cost and quite often the quality of recording studio's. Mostly gone are the traditional go to studios of the audiophile. Fewer symphonic recordings are being done with simple but high quality microphone systems. Most pop albums suffer from saturation distortion due to the "Loudness Wars". Many home studio's use "Monitor Speakers" that you wouldn't put in a dog house. Paying attention to the label and producers make a bigger differences than absolute phase, as long as it matches
