Neutral electronics are a farce...

No answer to my question yet, I duly note.

The industry does not pay attention to absolute phase. As a result, 50% of all recordings might be incorrect phase. The problem you have thought is that about 99.3% of all recordings employ more than two mics, often with tracks recorded in entirely different rooms. Sometimes these tracks are in phase with the rest of the project and sometimes they are not. This can result in out of phase bass which requires in some cases a special processor when mastering LPs. Otherwise the stylus can get knocked out of the groove. This does not happen with digital of course, but the point is that there are a lot of recordings that really are not absolutely in phase or out of phase.

Because of these factors inverting the phase is often not audible. You need a purist recording; everything has to be right in order to hear it. We included the phase inversion switch on our preamps on account of the fact that its a real pain in the rear to reverse the phase at the speaker terminals for each recording!

Actually I think that exact answer was given a ways back in this thread. But nice of atmasphere to repeat it anyhow.  

You'd think such a high precision device like that if truly possible  that would cost more than a few grand.    

Atmasphere wrote,

"Because of these factors inverting the phase is often not audible. You need a purist recording; everything has to be right in order to hear it. We included the phase inversion switch on our preamps on account of the fact that its a real pain in the rear to reverse the phase at the speaker terminals for each recording!"

I participated in John Curl and Bob Crump’s room a couple times at CES way back at the turn of the century and (of course) the Curl/Crump/Thompson Blowtorch preamp used in the room had a polarity switch. A very expensive one I might add. And Bob brought a lot of his own CDs with him to the show to demonstrate that polarity is audible. Very audible. Also in the room was another audio insider, Clark Johnsen, who, as you probably recall, wrote the book on absolute polarity. The CDs that Bob used for the demo were actually not purist recordings. They were good recordings but not purist recordings. Maybe you need a better polarity switch. ;-)

Clark Johnsen in Positive Feedback:

"For that sorry state of affairs, you can blame the commercial audio press. For whatever reason, hardly a whiff of this vital phenomenon ever appears in those precincts. Ultimate Audio, with two feature articles, became by default an exemplar of polarity awareness—quite so, as ultimate audio cannot be achieved without it! A personal disclaimer: I have often called polarity the sine qua non of correct audio practice. As author of the only book on the topic (The Wood Effect: Unaccounted Contributor to Error and Confusion in Acoustics and Audio, ISBN 0-929383-00-1), which explains everything, I naturally applaud the renewed attention. And I remember how Michael Gindi, an Ultimate Audio contributor, once toured the Stereophile Show chanting, "If you can’t hear the Wood Effect, you can’t hear!" I expect he still stands by that, though nary a peep recently."

geoff kait
machina dynamica

What's the beef?

atmasphere says phase switch may not always  be audible.  Geoff say it was in certain cases cited.  

Breaking news:.  No inconsistency here.     Is it always necessary to have the last word?   

I'm sure I won't be the one.  😭