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?
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. |
@mahgister Thank you for that long quote. I won’t rise to the bait about double-blind testing as I can see it applies only to subjective listening tests here. I am fascinated by the information about the eighth cranial nerve, however. It seems to imply we live in a half-wave world, but on thinking for a moment I realise that just because the hair cells in the cochlea trigger on the positive phase, it does not stop them from faithfully reporting to the cochlear nuclei the whole waveform. And when brainstem auditory evoked potentials are recorded, they are indeed whole positive and negative waveforms. Now that would imply only a difference on the first oscillation of a musical signal when phase is reversed, but if the double-blind test says we can tell the difference there must be more to it. Interesting stuff! It makes me wonder if the reason that some uncomplicated recordings (I mean a Blumlein pair of microphones, not post-processing or manipulation, like the old Opus 3 recordings) sound so good because there is no opportunity to introduce various tracks that are out of phase? |
Many factors are at play... So much than most people dont realize... Your point about microphones is really good point... Why "sound liaison" recording album are so good ? They used ONE MICROPHONE... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQtwN4zO8is
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