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Absolute Polarity - Myth or "Important"?

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KSTR

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I'm really confident it's a matter of training and preconditioning.
The polarity ABX test is my go-to warm-up test when doing any kind of analytical listening and testing. On some days it just doesn't work...

Number #1 rule of ABX'ing: The moment you feel any, even subtle kind of stress or annoyance stop immediately. You're not doing an exam here and it's not about getting a job done. Relaxed subconscious awareness is the key to success.

I've posted some easy test signals here (a synthetic signal and a music snippet) but I fail to locate them (thanks the useless search function).
But I found my bass guitar signal which is easy, too: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...t-matter-in-audio-no.24026/page-5#post-810375
 

solderdude

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Solderdudes file does not contain the necessary asymmetric bass waveforms to be audible, so in essence flipping that file will be inaudible.

What specific Alison Kraus song and at which time stamp ?
I will post those files to try.
 

Thomas_A

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At least the title having “myth or important”, seems to be somewhat answered here.
So in a sense, it almost doesn’t matter which one is right… in the context of accurately being able to tell a difference.

i.e. there is a difference.
In principle, I would to cite something Floyd Toole said once:

"Obviously, one should start with neutral loudspeakers and let the chips fall where they may."

The same may be said about absolute phase- "keep your system in correct absolute phase, and let the chips fall where they may." I think the same note was made by Steve Hoffman, i.e. set your system to correct phase and forget it. At least there may be some music producers that have this in mind.

My only note on the subject is that polarity switch would be a useful feature on DACS and DAC/Headphone combos, IMO. Good and transparent DACs have been on the market for a long time, and there are many cheap DACs with such extreme performance that they produce signals with deviations well beyond audibility. Adding a switch or a remote with polarity switch should not be hard to do.
 
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Thomas_A

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What specific Alison Kraus song and at which time stamp ?
I will post those files to try.
Oh, I discarded the time stamp files, song was "Walk over God's heaven". I have the test1 and test2 files, and can upload them if you want. They are like the other bass file flipped every second to make it easier. The allpass2 and alpass3 files previously posted from Diana Kralls record "Love scenes" shows essentially the same thing (I think this was from "All or Nothing at all").
 

Thomas_A

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I'm really confident it's a matter of training and preconditioning.
The polarity ABX test is my go-to warm-up test when doing any kind of analytical listening and testing. On some days it just doesn't work...

Number #1 rule of ABX'ing: The moment you feel any, even subtle kind of stress or annoyance stop immediately. You're not doing an exam here and it's not about getting a job done. Relaxed subconscious awareness is the key to success.

I've posted some easy test signals here (a synthetic signal and a music snippet) but I fail to locate them (thanks the useless search function).
But I found my bass guitar signal which is easy, too: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...t-matter-in-audio-no.24026/page-5#post-810375
Agreed, and that bass guitar signal is very revealing.
 

solderdude

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Somewhere halfway during the recording I found the asymmetric bass.
Both on the live performance as well as the original studio recording.

Attached the bass excerpt (with proof) of the excerpt of the live version (better recording quality)

enjoy testing,,,
 

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Thomas_A

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solderdude

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Your listening foo is better than mine.
For me the difference is too small to care when the goal is to enjoy music.
 

Holmz

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Your listening foo is better than mine.
For me the difference is too small to care when the goal is to enjoy music.

To be fair, people that are sensitive to it, are the ones that might not be able to enjoy the music when it is glaringly wrong.
 

Thomas_A

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Your listening foo is better than mine.
For me the difference is too small to care when the goal is to enjoy music.
No problem to enjoy the music, even though some tones can sound hard and aggressive and IMO, not pleasant.

I wonder what the basis to individual differences are. I might be training of course, but if there are other reasons. I used to be a concert pianist in my youth and my teacher said that I had absolute pitch, already in young years. Wonder if absolute pitch has anything to do with this? Even though this is actually dealing with comparing two tones. I remember some conductors that directly hear and can point out an individual barely mistuned violin among many others. This is remarkable.
 
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Thomas_A

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Another song with asymmetric signals but higher up in frequency. Impossible at least for me to hear any difference when inverted.


 

krabapple

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At least the title having “myth or important”, seems to be somewhat answered here.
So in a sense, it almost doesn’t matter which one is right… in the context of accurately being able to tell a difference.

i.e. there is a difference.

....but it is not necessarily audible. The thread topic posits Myth or Important? There is a middle ground.
 

Thomas_A

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To be fair, people that are sensitive to it, are the ones that might not be able to enjoy the music when it is glaringly wrong.
....but it is not necessarily audible. The thread topic posits Myth or Important? There is a middle ground.
Would be interesting to know what proportion that finds it audible. So far I don’t know how many that have tried it.
 

krabapple

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Would be interesting to know what proportion that finds it audible. So far I don’t know how many that have tried it.
It's not just a matter of who's listening. It's also a matter of what the audio is.
 

Thomas_A

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It's not just a matter of who's listening. It's also a matter of what the audio is.
If related to music I would say any of the examples in this thread. KSTRs bass guitarr?
 

krabapple

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Getting 20 out of 20 on an ABX seems like it must be audible.
Or am I missing something?
You believe it's always audible to you across all music, based on a few samples? Hardly.
 

Holmz

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You believe it's always audible to you across all music, based on a few samples? Hardly.

That is not claimed.
He showed 20 out of 20 on an ABX, not 20/20 on CDX nor XYZ.

So I did not claiming it is always audible.
Just the fellow showed it was for that test.

This is not a difficult concept.
 

solderdude

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The files to listen for it are in this thread and Thomas has proven that it is audible to him so it is a valid test.
Just compare them (blind if possible) and if one finds it very hard to detect then there is no need to worry about absolute phase.
If one can detect is and it stands out in a negative way (takes away music enjoyment) then it is something that person values and is audible and potentially affecting music enjoyment.

I really don't think many people will be bothered by it though. For instance no one even seemed to mention it about the HE400SE and I only noticed it in measurements.

When someone can detect it (without the need of an AB test) a can-o-worms opens up. Is the entire recording done in the 'correct' phase ? Does one need to flip phase on each recording to find what sounds best before able to enjoy a recording? Are all instruments/voices recorded in the correct phase ? (nothing can be done about this after the fact).
 

krabapple

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That is not claimed.
He showed 20 out of 20 on an ABX, not 20/20 on CDX nor XYZ.

So I did not claiming it is always audible.
Just the fellow showed it was for that test.

This is not a difficult concept.

Speaking of not difficult concepts, you seem not to understand what the words "not necessarily audible" mean, or perhaps its just the bolded word that is tripping you up.

How about I rephrase it?

Absolute polarity is sometimes audible.

That's been known for years.

It isn't always audible. Thomas_A himself presented an inverted pair he couldn't hear a difference between. So the content matters.

That's been known for years. Bass content reveals it better.

(And, obviously, the listener matters too. We've seen here that some couldn't hear a difference that Thomas_A demonstrated he could hear. This is the banal sense of the phrase 'sometimes audible')

I'm almost literally just repeating myself.
 
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