Riddle me this....


It was recently suggested to me that by reversing the polarity of two stereo

speakers it will readjust  the depth of field in your soundstage.

 

In case that is unclear- If a voice was perceived as being one foot behind the

speakers and you swapped the positive to negative on the terminals of both

speakers it would make that voice move to being perceived as 

one foot in front of the plane of two stereo speakers.

 

Has anyone heard of this experiment and what can you

share about it?

 

128x128jeffseight

antigrunge, I hope you and anyone else will get the point that I don’t claim phase makes no difference. Please pay attention to the double negative in that last sentence. I do claim that (1) I, and everyone else who has been subjected to double blind testing for phase sensitivity in my listening room with my dipolar full-range ESLs, cannot hear any difference, and (2) I am not convinced by any argument I have read anywhere, no matter how erudite are the discussants, that changing the phase of an audio system by 180 degrees necessarily ought to make a difference to the listener. Get that last point too.... I don’t see why it ought to make a difference, because there are many counter-arguments that seem also valid and which would lead to the conclusion that phase reversal (of both channels) would just as likely make no audible difference. Seems to me as soon as you have two or more sound sources on one recording (e.g., single piano plus single human voice), the importance of phase in the listening room begins to break down, because the phase relationships of the sounds emanating from those two or more sources is not going to perfect, even if they were recorded using one microphone. Of course, if you are listening for the voice, and if you have "correct" phase for the voice, then that might sound "better" than optimizing for the piano. Dunno.

For the many who say they do hear a difference, how do you know that the difference you hear has anything to do with changing phase? You might have a dirty phase switch or when you switched speaker wires, maybe your new connection is better or worse than the original because you tightened down the connector with such conviction. There’s also expectation bias, etc.

Jea48 tells some other guy to listen for himself and then provides three URLs that take you to arguments FOR the importance of absolute phase. Better to listen for yourself first.

The effect can happen to an extent if your speakers are phase coherent.

Ever turn binoculars around and see how things now seem more distant than the usual close up?

Reversing polarity of both speakers has that kind of effect. 

But, its more like hearing what the nearfield mics pick up situated right next to the instrument vs listening to music in a room with some distance. That's what I perceive on my system.

Jea48,

 

Thanks for providing me the most useful information.

The Six Moons article explained it so even I understood it!

@jea48 

+1 Couldn't agree more.  May not make much difference on let's say organ music, but any percussive sound "needs" to start out as a push.  That is how you would hear it live.

Regards,

barts