Preamp inverts signal.

What is interesting and a little mysterious in George's very thorough explanation of absolute polarity is that entire CD LABEL repertoire are inverted polarity which seems to rule out randomness of CDs being inverted polarity. Mapleshade is an exception but on George's list the big boys like Mercury Living Presence and RCA Living Stereo CDs and Deutsches Gramophon are inverted polarity. So, ensuring one's system is polarity inverting might actually be a very good idea if his taste runs toward classical music. My only nagging reservation is that nobody else has confirmed George's list as far as I know, which does show an overwhelmingly high percentage of CDs having inverted polarity. I do find myself much preferring analog versions of RCA Living Stereo recordings including cassettes over the CD version, but it's difficult to say whether the reason fir this preference can be attributed entirely to the difference in absolute polarity, but I'm open to the idea that it might be a lot of the reason.

"Sidebar, how can I test my system for polarity? Test track?"

The most reliable way to test the system for absolute polarity is the in phase and out of phase tracks of the XLO Test CD. Of your system is in the correct absolute polarity the Out of Phase track will sound like it is coming at you from all around the room with no specific direction. And conversely the in phase track will sound like it's coming from dead center and be very focused. These effects are much more pronounced with proper speaker set up and after careful attention to room tuning. 

Geoff Kait

Onhwy61 wrote,

"Not every listener is sensitive to absolute polarity."

>> I never said they were. Some people hear better than others, no doubt about it. And there are exceptions to every rule. I suspect it’s probably true that people need to be trained to listen for the difference between N and R, otherwise they tend to not know what to listen for.  Just like distortion or say transparency or grain or whatever. Everyone should go out and and find a guru. ;-)

Onhwy61 also wrote,

"And even if a listener prefers one polarity over the other it doesn’t mean the preferred setting is the "correct" polarity.""

>>I never said it did mean that. People frequently don’t know what the heck they’re listening to half the time, don’t you think? No one actually thinks about polarity when he’s listening. Only if he’s testing for polarity. And then he has to do the test correctly, no? It’s a little more complex than you let on. Most likely 99% of audiophiles do not think about polarity EVER in the course of a year. But that doesn’t mean polarity is not an issue or is a non-trivial one.

"An ordinary man has no means of deliverance." ~ Old audiophile expression

Al, unfortunately phase and polarity are sometimes used interchangeably. In the case of the XLO test CD when they refer to "phase" they're actually referring to what we call absolute polarity now, you know, what with the book on polarity by Clark Johnsen and the work in the past ten years by George Louis.  Obviously one should not misconnect cables. If one speaker is out of phase due to miswiring the out of phase track will not sound correct.

cheers