preamp inverts polarity

From the intro to The Wood Effect (1988) by Clark Johnsen, audio journalist at large,

Newcomers to Polarity do deserve some introduction though, which for the sake of everyone else I shall make brief. The abstract to The Wood Effect (1988) still explains it best:

Masked by random combination with other distortions in the music reproduction chain, an unsuspected major contributor has lain hidden: Aural sensitivity to "phase inversion", the Wood effect.

Musical instruments normally create compression waves in their attack transients. Electronics, however, often invert that natural, positive polarity to negative, unnatural rarefaction as emitted from loudspeakers, thus diminishing physical and aesthetic impact. The term Absolute Polarity uniquely describes the correct arrival to the ear of acoustic wavefronts from loudspeakers, with respect to actual musical instruments.

Wrong polarity, when isolated, is obvious to almost everyone. Its present neglect results primarily from habitual disregard for linear phase response in loudspeakers, due largely to the erroneous auditory theory of Helmholtz.

In case anyone is still reading this thread, I need to clarify the end result of my experiments with "phase" and "polarity".

It turned out I had a speaker wire reversed at the amplifier.  Once corrected, I was able to run "stereo polarity tests" that proved my speakers were "in phase" (https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_polaritycheck.php).  Also confirmed with my HiFi News test record.

It seems we need some concise definitions regarding "phase" and "polarity".  I have no idea what to call it, but if you get your "red" wires and your "non-red" wires reversed somewhere along the line, you will end up with compromised imaging and sound.

Absolute phase and polarity are the same thing.
Relative phase is one channel out of phase with the other and should be corrected, regardless of the absolute phase/polarity (IOW, whether your system is inverting or not).
I rarely agree with Geoff on anything, but in the case of recordings he is correct. The recording industry doesn't care about absolute polarity; 50% of all recordings are inverted polarity.
We have a switch on our preamp to correct this if needed. That's a lot easier than swapping the speaker cable polarity in both channels to see if its better or not.
Absolute polarity can usually only be heard if the recording is done with just two mics (possibly also with a third center channel mic mixed in). If more than that, the signal gets too messed up and you simply can't tell.

atmasphere, you should agree with me more often. You’ll be much better off in the long run. 🏃

To be a little picky, I have been saying for CDs the percentage might be much higher than 50%. In fact, if you believe G Louis, the Polarity Pundit, the percetage is 92%.  That’s why I’ve pointed out a number of times recently, i.e., the last few years, putting one’s system in Reverse Absolute Polarity might actually be the best long term strategy. What with overly aggressive compression and the absolute Polarity issue CDs have devolved from perfect sound forever to perfectly atrocious.