Calling Aesthetix IO Users

In addition to Patricks (correct) comments, the plus and minus RCA jacks of an Aesthetix Io are simply the XLR outputs, separated into their two single ended parts.

A good place to use this would be If you had an phase inverting amplifier, the minus output of the Io would keep you from having to reverse wires at the speakers. This would not be a good choice unless the other sources such as CD were also reverse phase ( I think for instance, CJ is reverse phase)

A direct answer to your question "who swaps cables all the time?" I don't know of anyone who does, that's a poor way to swap phase.

Pulling an RCA output jack during a music session is a good way to blow your amp or speaker. You might do it several times and get by with it, but it's dangerous, especially with high power amps.

The easy way to swap phase is with the new remote control for the Aesthetix Callisto. It will eventually have phase reverse and controlled by infrared from your listening chair. I'm writing a review of it right now for PFO.

I posted this response to your question on Vinyl Asylum - here it is again.

Since absolute polarity varies from recording to recording, there is no "right" setting. You have to know which labels used non-inverted polarity and which used inverted polarity. Some labels varied, and indeed some tracks on some records vary (and on multitrack recordings some of the different tracks were recorded with different absolute polarities -a fact of life in the complexity of modern recording studios).

The 2 sets of Aesthetix RCA outputs are simply so that you can keep polarity the same through your system, so you know exactly what your're getting (check your other components to see whether they maintain polarity or are inverted polarity, then figure out what you're getting out of your speakers - ASSUMING of course that you know the polarity of the recording you're playing).

If you have a polarity-reverse switch on your linestage, then of course you can use this to switch between the two.

But in any event many people can't hear the difference between absolute and inverted polarity. Some people can. Maybe you're one of them.

In any event, it's much more important to keep your left and right channels in phase than to have correct absolute polarity!