Stereophile test CD2 In/Out of Phase test:question

Presumably since the initial pulse of music is a positive pressure wave. This has always concerned me as the microphone moves away with this pressure. If it is phased properly, it seems to me that this would be a negative signal and thus with equal stages of amplification would reach the speaker as a negative signal, causing a retraction of the voice coil. This would indeed make JBL right and the others wrong.

I have heard your explanation about England's choice versus that in the U.S. It fails to explain France and the rest of Europe and obviously fails in Australia.

Tbg...France being screwed up needs no explanation. Australia is geographically inverted, so that explains them.

By the way one could take issue with your presumption that the initial pressure disturbance is positive. How about a gong, or less obviously a drum. (Any bipole source). The initial pressure disturbance polarity will depend on where the listener is located relative to the source.

Many years ago I traveled through the Suez canal, and I observed that the initial water disturbance (wave) due to the moving ship, as measured by water movement at the edge of the canal was down. This is counterintuitive. Although I was an Engineer for four decades I never quite figured out this phenomena that I observed when I was about eleven years old.

El, can you recommend any audiophile gong recordings so I can test your hypothesis.

Herman...see http://www.holistic-resonance.com/index2.html

That's amazimg. I need to get out more. I have a recording of Tibetan finger bells, but I had no idea there was so much interest in the gong.