A point that hasn't been mentioned is that when the setting of the polarity switch that is provided on some components is changed, in addition to the polarity of the music signal being inverted the sonics of the component could conceivably change, at least slightly, depending on the specific design.
I'd expect that to not be the case with a fully balanced design, such as Ralph's (Atmasphere's), since polarity in such a design can be changed by simply interchanging two signals somewhere in its internal signal path. But with a design having an unbalanced internal signal path it is not necessarily that simple, and in some designs I wouldn't be surprised if sonic side-effects were to occur when the position of the switch is changed.
Perhaps in some cases that is one example of how easy it can be in audio to attribute a perceived difference to the wrong variable.
Regards,
-- Al
I'd expect that to not be the case with a fully balanced design, such as Ralph's (Atmasphere's), since polarity in such a design can be changed by simply interchanging two signals somewhere in its internal signal path. But with a design having an unbalanced internal signal path it is not necessarily that simple, and in some designs I wouldn't be surprised if sonic side-effects were to occur when the position of the switch is changed.
Perhaps in some cases that is one example of how easy it can be in audio to attribute a perceived difference to the wrong variable.
Regards,
-- Al