Reversed Polarity LP Cuts - Examples?


I recently bought a custom made phono stage equipped with a three-position polarity switch on the front panel with the positions "+", "mute", "-" and, so far, have not had occassion to use the "-" function. I found an old UK pressing of the Stones "Sticky Fingers" at a garage sale Saturday and, after a thorough cleaning, found that a few tracks sounded a bit "flat", for lack of a better term. Recalled the polarity switch and snapped it to "-". Huge improvement.

I have heard vague mention of LP's or tracks of LP's being recorded "in reverse" before but am wondering how commonly this is found. Can anyone give specific examples of what they've discovered (not including intentional phase shifting done for particular efffect, such as used by the Beatles and others). Thanks.
4yanx

Showing 5 responses by zaikesman

Cmk - That's amazing...Do you have any clues as to why Sheffield would press this record with what they considered to be 'incorrect' polarity if they were clearly aware of the issue?
Although it's still possible that a record such as your example would sound better one way than the other as far as polarity goes, a multi-tracked studio pop recording like that does not really possess a "correct" absolute polarity, because all the individual tracks which have been mic'ed, EQ'ed, and mixed separately to arrive at the final stereo master will neither possess integrity of relative phase characteristics, nor will they necessarily all have their individual absolute polarities preserved throughout the electronics chain. Also, the electric and synthetic instruments used will display somewhat arbitrary phase characteristics. So no one absolute polarity setting on playback will be all right or all wrong - if you hear a difference, it will likely be more a matter of preference and chance than of 'phase-reversal' during disk mastering.

The concept mostly applies best in theory to live performance acoustic musics recorded at natural mic distances with naturally equal, true-stereo minimal mic configurations, in actual performance spaces rather than isolation booths, where all the instruments and voices can arrive together at the mic's with their natural phase relationhships mostly intact, and cannot have those interrelationships altered through multitrack mixing and EQ. Then a 'correct' absolute phase could be said to exist, but even then probably only an audiophile-oriented recording label could be counted upon to preserve the overall phase integrity by not heavily EQ'ing the master, not rerecording or overdubbing spot-mic'ed touch-ups, and taking care to preserve absolute polarity during mastering. If that care wasn't taken with a particular recording otherwise fitting this description, then reversing polarity on playback might make an unqualified improvement, or at least in theory (there's debate over how sensitive the ear actually is to absolute polarity even when the recording justifies the term, and it's hard to entirely rule out spurious factors for listeners' stated preferences in this area).

I remember once reading a reveiw on one of the online webzines where the writer insisted that at a stereo show he had recently attended, most of the displayers had their sound screwed up because they 'inverted' polarity, and that he went from booth to booth informing the exhibitors of their mistake within seconds of having walked into a room and listened to the music. He said all the music that sounded 'washed-out' or the like was certainly suffering from 'incorrect' absolute polarity, and that he couldn't believe that others didn't instantly hear this like he could, no matter what type of recording was playing. He also claimed that every exhibitor who followed his advice got much better sound period, regardless of what other disks they put on. Bullshit! Bottom line: just listen the way that sounds best - if you can tell a difference at all - but take the audiophile proclamations about the sacredness of 'absolute polarity' with a large grain of salt. There are reasons why even the best recordings - and stereo systems - don't fool us into thinking we're hearing the real thing, and the inability to perfectly preserve the natural time relationships you hear live is one of them. IMO.
Cmk - If your contention that 1/2 of LP's are pressed with 'reversed phase' were true, and if reversing your system's polarity 'fixed' something like 'weaker bass' supposedly caused by this, then your phono with the inverted polarity woud cause the other 1/2 of LP's - the ones pressed 'in phase' - to display the same alleged symptoms. If you're not prepared to experiment finding the 'best' polarity for each recording, then by your reckoning at least half will be played back 'wrong', whether you arrange your system to be always polarity-correct or always polarity-inverting. Yet, you say you "haven't had any problems." Think about the implications...
Cmk, I agree with you on that statement (obviously many folks such as Bob may take some exception), even if it seems to somewhat contradict your previous post. What it really means is that what you're hearing would likely seem largely the same to you even if your phonostage did not invert polarity. But I agree with Bob's implication that if you're not going to futz around with polarity as standard operating procedure (as I do not), then it's still probably best to just make sure your system is polarity-correct before putting the issue out of your mind. My DAC has long had a polarity-invert button, but I never end up using it. My latest preamp is the first one I've had with remote polarity control...maybe I'll start trying to experiment with this aspect more in the future and see if I get anything out of it worth the bother, at least with certain types of music and recordings.
Rich, I'm sure you realize that this a different scenario and question. I can't see what "fixing" the master in this regard after mixdown could entail except by selectively using info from only one of the channels as necessary to cross-feed into a new panned-'stereo' mix...