Does reversing polarity change music?

[j-malotky]

I can not comment on the AC polarity, but if your talking about your speaker leads I do have some insight.

Years ago a friend pointed this out to me and I did not believe him at first until I tried it on a few of my albums at the time. What I learned is that you must add in the human factor in the recording process. In doing so, there are times that a recording engineer has hooked up cables wrong. So yes, I do have some recordings that sound better having the + running to the - on my speakers.

JM

[dodger]

A GOOD Engineer will maintain Hot and Ground Polarity from the initial build.

Understanding that the left and right polarity from amp to speaker should also be hooked the same. Otherwise one cone is moving forward while the oter is moving back.

Again this is a part of the reason for the polarized plugs - sequence.

However there are not enough Studio Designers and Engineers that will insist on this.

It's a matter of sonic purity. Some may disagree, but when putting your full reputation and skills on the line, you want evry nuance possible. If that is shown to to be so by a number of listeners, it is not diffcult to achieve either with the polarized plugs or by a three pronged grounded outlet and power cord.

If the Artist(s) specify complete polarity, it should be done. If not and the Artistis(s) check, Arrogant Engineers may survive at the re-inforced sound but gain a reputation for Recording.

Also, as noted before, outlets whether three pronged or grounded via the green screw will pass / fail using a simple device to check

proper wirng no ground, poor ground, proper hot, etc..

Also again, a phase switch should should control one speaker. If it controls both and switches both, one side will still be out of phase, though reversed.

[Benesesso]

A bit off-subject here, but some may find it interesting. Way back in the 1960-70's, WCBS-FM in NYC had something called "The Young Sound". My friend worked at the company in NJ that made the tapes for them. WCBS insisted that the phase of both channels be "in phase". I don't know what HZ was spec'd., but anyone who has done head alignment for high-freq. response will know how difficult something like phase alignment was, trying to adjust the heads with screws.

The tape-duplicating place had something like 18 or 20 big Ampex recorders, and all of them plus the master had to be in-phase.

IIRC, the requirement was caused by the FCC requirement to not degrade the mono FM signal when stereo FM appeared on the scene.

[DrWho]

I don't see how you can hook up cables wrong in the studio...everything is wired the same way and you can only plug things in one way. The only time phase gets screwy in the studio is when the engineer chooses or refrains from pushing the phase invertion switch for a particular channel. For example, we generally reverse the phase on the kick drum because all the other drums are getting mic'ed from above...so when the drum head is struck, the head moves away from the mic first, but with the kick the head is moving towards the drum...so we reverse the phase that way everything is moving the same direction. You can quickly tell when an engineer didn't hit the phase switch because when the toms and kick are hit simultaneously, they almost completely cancel each other out.

[dragonfyr]

AC is AC? And for the purposes of grounding?.....

I surely never want to tie into the AC service in your house! And codes, if they ever do really inspect, would have a justifiable field day! What you are describing is simply AC delayed in phase 180degrees, But you cannot say it is all the same. Unfortunately, it is not so easy!

But hey, all waveforms, be they audio or visual or HDTV are simply electromagnetic radiation, so its all the same...right!?

Regarding audio, yes, polarity matters here too. Those Dafos drums or Telarc cannon shots will be most dramatic(sic) with your reflex loaded drivers moving 'backwards' during the initial impulse response. One could legitimately say that such a system 'sucks'!

And it would be such a pleasant change if we stopped using the terms phase and polarity interchangeably. They are not the same thing!

Polarity101.pdf