your description on inverted vs non-inverted is pretty much spot on ime .... i just wouldnt nessecary call the non-inverted "warm" imo more direct and natural sounding specially with instruments you mentioned... depending on your taste this "direct" sound can sound funny too at first if you are used to listening to inverted phase, but if you kinda try to compare tones in real life vs speakers you will quickly find that correct absolute phase sounds more in line with what we hear in real life :)
Thanks for watching commenting. To me, correct absolute phase can be very important and I don’t understand why it’s not given more attention by other channels.
An explanaion I can think of is the fact that probbably neither our speakers and our ears are fully linear, aka, they behave differently when goin one way or the other.
Thanks for your video Boston. So if some recordings are in absolute phase while others are out of absolute phase that would mean when randomly playing various albums sometimes it will sound right and sometimes it will sound limited? I for one would not be reversing my speaker leads for every other album I listen to. There must be a recording “standard” in the recording business to insure phase is correct so recordings sound as good as possible for Joe Average each and every time? Could you explain this a little more. Thanks again.
There’s no recording standard of which I am aware. Since you have an Ares, you can use its phase button to invert phase, no need for you to touch speaker wires. Does this reply help?Thanks for watching.
The Boston Audiophile Thanks Boston, appreciate your reply. You are right about the phase button on my Ares dac, I intend to experiment with this next time I’m allowed to listen to music in my living room, currently my wife is working from home and has set up an office in that room so I’m banned for the time being, lol. I did a youtube search for absolute phase and there is an interesting video from Paul McGowan th-cam.com/video/S1wDeLsjxno/w-d-xo.html Cheers Marc.
@@marcl8814 Thanks. I gather that Paul feels it’s not that important. I disagree. Perhaps on some recordings it’s subtle, but I find it hard to enjoy some recordings if I’m listening with the wrong phase.
Oh boy, you’ve ventured into real controversial topic now. How is it that you have determined this? I’m a skeptic on this. If you have just swapped the polarities on your speakers then listened again, let’s just say that I have my doubts about your claims. Here is what I would try to do to make a judgement if I were able to do it, as I don’t have a real system anymore but just an iPad and headphones as I’m now retired and have downsized everything in my life. I would setup my speakers side by side so that speaker positions in the room do not influence the test and have a friend come in and hook up my speakers in reverse and not tell me which is which. Then I would play a mono signal and pan the sound from left to right and back again and listen for a difference without moving my head at all. Then to eliminate the possibility of small differences in amplifier gain and speaker sensitivities across the spectrum from influencing my result, I would have the friend reverse the connection on both speakers without revealing anything about the polarities and listen again. This is the only way to test this issue and many others for real differences and audible perceptions. I will venture to guess that you will not be able to reliable determine a difference in the sound one way or another. Would be very interested in your result should you decide to take me up on this challenge.
Thanks for the vids. I kind of knew what speaker phase was but couldn't understand why some dacs had a phase button. Now I know. Very useful.
You're very welcome. Thank you for watching. Glad I could clear up your "phase button" mystery.
your description on inverted vs non-inverted is pretty much spot on ime .... i just wouldnt nessecary call the non-inverted "warm" imo more direct and natural sounding specially with instruments you mentioned... depending on your taste this "direct" sound can sound funny too at first if you are used to listening to inverted phase, but if you kinda try to compare tones in real life vs speakers you will quickly find that correct absolute phase sounds more in line with what we hear in real life :)
Thanks for watching commenting. To me, correct absolute phase can be very important and I don’t understand why it’s not given more attention by other channels.
An explanaion I can think of is the fact that probbably neither our speakers and our ears are fully linear, aka, they behave differently when goin one way or the other.
I did not know this. Interesting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Glad you found it useful!
The phase button on my Terminator DAC was a revelation.
Yup! Most audiophiles seem to not care, but I find music out of phase unpleasant sounding.
Thinking about ordering the Terminator (think I have decided against the T Plus). Are you as happy with it as everyone else seems to be?
@@jslawsby_W5GI I have an Ares II right now. I may upgrade to a Pontus, Terminator or other DAC in the future ... can't decide yet.
Thanks for your video Boston. So if some recordings are in absolute phase while others are out of absolute phase that would mean when randomly playing various albums sometimes it will sound right and sometimes it will sound limited? I for one would not be reversing my speaker leads for every other album I listen to. There must be a recording “standard” in the recording business to insure phase is correct so recordings sound as good as possible for Joe Average each and every time? Could you explain this a little more. Thanks again.
There’s no recording standard of which I am aware. Since you have an Ares, you can use its phase button to invert phase, no need for you to touch speaker wires. Does this reply help?Thanks for watching.
The Boston Audiophile
Thanks Boston, appreciate your reply. You are right about the phase button on my Ares dac, I intend to experiment with this next time I’m allowed to listen to music in my living room, currently my wife is working from home and has set up an office in that room so I’m banned for the time being, lol.
I did a youtube search for absolute phase and there is an interesting video from Paul McGowan
th-cam.com/video/S1wDeLsjxno/w-d-xo.html
Cheers Marc.
@@marcl8814 Thanks. I gather that Paul feels it’s not that important. I disagree. Perhaps on some recordings it’s subtle, but I find it hard to enjoy some recordings if I’m listening with the wrong phase.
Great video! good luck with your channel! Off topic...the "jimi" track is actually SRV... kinda strange.
Thank you. Good Catch! I've now corrected the description above.
Confused.
To👍or👎?
Doh!
I'm not sure absolute phase on a flute makes much difference. However, absolute phase on a kick drum is a different story.
You can listen and decide for yourself.
I will as soon as I can. Thanks for a great channel.
Oh boy, you’ve ventured into real controversial topic now. How is it that you have determined this? I’m a skeptic on this. If you have just swapped the polarities on your speakers then listened again, let’s just say that I have my doubts about your claims. Here is what I would try to do to make a judgement if I were able to do it, as I don’t have a real system anymore but just an iPad and headphones as I’m now retired and have downsized everything in my life. I would setup my speakers side by side so that speaker positions in the room do not influence the test and have a friend come in and hook up my speakers in reverse and not tell me which is which. Then I would play a mono signal and pan the sound from left to right and back again and listen for a difference without moving my head at all. Then to eliminate the possibility of small differences in amplifier gain and speaker sensitivities across the spectrum from influencing my result, I would have the friend reverse the connection on both speakers without revealing anything about the polarities and listen again. This is the only way to test this issue and many others for real differences and audible perceptions. I will venture to guess that you will not be able to reliable determine a difference in the sound one way or another. Would be very interested in your result should you decide to take me up on this challenge.
Rubbish. You’re kidding yourselves.