Invert Polarity in Digital Domain

Hi George, this sounds very interesting, and thanks for the post. However, I'm confused: are you saying that there is one absolute polarity for all (or nearly all) digital media, and that the above label lists are bogus? This is, if you have speakers with 6 dB first-order Butterworth crossovers, and if your entire chain is polarity-consistent, if I understand you correctly.

I did experience some truth to the label list posted by Dopogue (even without my speakers exhibiting the 6 dB first-order Butterworth crossover, or so I believe). For example, on my system, most Deutsche Grammophone discs sound correct in inverted mode, whereas Philips Classical sound mostly better in normal mode!

This is based on some extensive comparisons over the last two weeks, all with classical music, and mostly chamber music (that's where I hear any polarity-based differences the easiest).

Based on your "I hear it when its done by the CD player but not when its done by the preamp," I believe your observations may be purely psychological manifestations. Either that or the phase invert button on your preamp is nonfunctional. Phase invert or phase reversal should both do the same thing, and doing it twice is like not doing it at all.

So, it shouldn't matter one iota whether polarity is inverted by the recording engineer that did your CD, your DAC, your amp, your preamp, or by reversing the speaker wires on your speakers.

Either you have established absolute polarity or you are reversed. Either the black wire connects to the red terminal and the red wire connects to the black terminal, or vice-versa. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no halfway ground here...

My Wadia did this, And Yes it was always better on all recordings I had, I really don't know why, but in regular it would sound more direct and even compressed, in Invert it always added a little air depth, and bass was more Wooly and room filling, maybe it was a gimmick, kinda a Tube effect or how vinyl is superior in those aspects. I think I read somewhere my current Dac is just built with the inverted engaged and no choice is on it to change that so who knows, but I could be wrong. And I looked into it once before and saw some stuff on studio recordings and how large majorities of them are recorded out of phase or inverted whatever so again who knows, this industry seems impossible to nail down a definitive standard in all this stuff, and then you get to many cooks in the kitchen on top of it.

Edesilva: Could very well be that the phase invert button on my pre-amp is dysfunctional, as it does make a popping sound when I engage it. Who knows?

Undertow: Yes, "direct/non-inverted" can sound more direct and even compressed, but it depends on the label. E.g., most of my Philips Classical now sound wonderful in non-inverted/direct mode.

I'm really grateful for all the comments from everybody, I feel I can now enjoy my music again (and I know why!).