tv69;478992 Wrote: > The words polarity and phase often get interchanged but often are > defined to be different things. Just to be clear, the discussion > revolves around polarity switching which is equivalent to swapping the > +/- connections at the speaker terminals on both left and right > channels. > > The effects of switching polarity are often not apparent. It is > dependent on the recording method and also on the material. When multi > track recordings do not maintain absolute polarity (zero polarity) on > all individual tracks, the effect of switching polarity will cause in > some circumstances an improvement in one area and while causing harm in > others. > > For example, if vocals are recorded in reverse polarity while drums are > recorded at zero polarity, a flip of the polarity switch can possibly > cause the vocals to sound better while the drums will sound worse. > Nothing can be done to improve both vocals and drums in this case. The > mastering engineer often has to decide from which perspective to master > in such a case. > > There are also some cases where the phase between left and right > channels is not correct on some older recordings. This happens when the > polarity on the left channel for example is at zero while the right > channel is at 180 degrees. You can try this out by flipping the +/- > connections only on one of your speakers. Listen to what happens to the > stereo image when this is done. > > TV > > Also where perfect or absolute pitch is concerned, today's music is > based around scales where the note A above middle C is measured to have > 440 cycles or 440Hz. This has not always been the case as outlined > here: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_%28music%29#History_of_pitch_standards_in_Western_music > > It makes me wonder what frequencies were used for A above middle C by > the great classical composers and how they intended their music to be > heard?
In this discussion phase and polarity are interchangable concepts. Absolute Pitch is easily measurable - it is a frequency. What frequency we currently choose to assign to the concept of "middle C" is irrelevant. I'm not talking about "stereo" mixes with obvious phase errors (or even deliberate phase mangling a la "electronically rechannelled mono" or whatever). Yes of course if you are listening to a stereo mix where one or more instruments (often an electric guitar) have been panned into stereo with deliberate or accidental l/r phase "errors" then it is possible that inverting the phase may shift the apparent position of that instrument in the stereo soundfield. There are FX boxes that do exactly that... I don't believe I have any music where the entire l/r channels are out of phase.. My point is not that such thing are undetectable (they are in certain circumstances) but rather that there is no right or wrong here. Furthermore, they are only detectable in highly controlled circumstances that are rarely replicable in domestic listening environments. Slightly off-topic, but for fairly obvious related reasons one would never use a stereo stylus to replay mono records...but 99.9% of vinyl addicts do. I'll have another listen to the stereo Revolver (although tbh the mono version is "the one") -- Phil Leigh You want to see the signal path BEFORE it gets onto a CD/vinyl...it ain't what you'd call minimal... SB Touch Beta (wired) - TACT 2.2X (Linear PSU) + Good Vibrations S/W - MF Triplethreat(Audiocom full mods) - Linn 5103 - Aktiv 5.1 system (6x LK140's, ESPEK/TRIKAN/KATAN/SEIZMIK 10.5), Townsend Supertweeters, Blue Jeans Digital,Kimber Speaker & Chord Interconnect cables Kitchen Boom, Outdoors: SB Radio ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=69447 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
