Benz micro glider cartridge loading advice needed.

@lewm 

I should have added that, for those who can hear differences in absolute phase,

You should be so lucky.

Unfortunately I hear inverted absolute phase even in foreign systems. David Fletcher of Sumiko the same.

Sadly there are many records where instruments/vocals are out of phase relative to each other - eg you can have clean vocals with fuzzy sax or  vice versa.

Can be annoying.

ESL's are less pronounced than cone speakers.

Your last bit about instruments vs vocals being out of phase with each other in a given track is something I didn’t dare mention for fear of scaring the OP. A good reason to just pick a polarity and live with it unless one has a preamp with a phase switch that permits convenience in choosing absolute phase per each recording.

Years ago I ran a blind test of my wife, my then teenage son, and a friend, using the phase switch on my Atmasphere MP1 and listening to my full range Sound Lab ESLs. I stood behind them, out of their fields of view, and flipped the phase switch on several recordings. Neither they nor I could hear any effect.

Not to hijack this fine thread... I wish someone could, in a new thread explain why in the heck phase inversion is used in the first place.  I have a system full of CJ equipment and it gets confusing about weather to flip the speaker wires or not..

@quincy No hijack at all. I totally agree with you about this whole phase inversion issue. Color coded wires on the carts are there for a reason and are universal. So, if a manufacturer needs to invert it for some reason, why don't they just insert a toggle switch internally? Would be a heck of a lot easier than to have to deal with tweezers and changing the wires. And I don't know about you, but if you look at my virtual system, it is not so easy to change the polarity of my speaker wires. Maybe someone can tell us why the phase inversion is necessary at the cart. 

Regards 

@judsauce @quincy 

Absolute phase.

Think of it this way - 

If you have cone speakers and absolute phase is correct the drivers first inpetus is to push out and then back as the signal is applied.

If the absolute phase is reversed the cones first inpetus is to suck in instead of out when the first signal is applied.

When the absolute phase is correct with cone speakers I generally hear a more natural sound, when it is wrong I generally hear a slightly flattened soundstage, and at worst slight compression in the mids.

With electrostatics such as @lewm runs, his speakers, unlike most  cone speakers, are pushing sound both frontwards and backwards so the effect is less apparent.

The problem with Conrad preamps is that most of them invert absolute phase in the line stage, so you simply reverse the + and - connections at the speaker.

However if you have a phono stage that inverts phase ( and the line stage does not ) then you can't reverse the + and - at the speaker because the CD or digital will then be out of absolute phase. In this case the best solution is to reverse the + and - connections on the cartridge for each channel.