Polarity of speaker drivers

@glai This is potentially a huge issue. Yes, MANY designs do this and some argue that it's because the result is potentially better measurements which in turn look better in magazine reviews, and result in higher sales. Others would say that the most common configuration, midrange reversed from tweeter and woofer in a 3way, results in increased air & ambience. 
I am in the camp that thinks it's great to test it both ways and trust your ears. More often than not, I prefer the sound with all drivers in polarity. Of course, this is easier to test on some speakers more than others. For example, the Nolas and Alons that I've owned included tri-wiring so it was simple to just swap leads for the reversed driver. Doing so on a pair of 5 ways with internal crossover is a huge PITA! 
A good friend of mine and audio tech carries a "Cricket" polarity tester with test CD everywhere he goes. I've seen him shock & delight over a dozen system owners by getting their drivers in polarity. 
@brf makes a good point too. QA needs to be held to a higher standard. Cheers,
Spencer

Some speaker companies (like Vandersteen and the old Thiel) stake their design philosophy on the premise that these time domain issues are crucial.  Listen to those designs yourself and see what you think.  I'm a Vandersteen guy, so you know where I stand.

Full range headphones, using a single driver without a crossover for all frequencies, can tell us what a loudspeaker should sound like, at least in amplitude and temporal terms. So do some planar speakers, such as the Eminent Technology LFT-8b, which has a single driver reproducing 180Hz to 10kHz, without a crossover in that range. The x/o at 180Hz to a dynamic woofer, and at 10kHz to a ribbon tweeter, are both 1st order-6dB/octave, just as in Vandersteen designs.

@sbank is right.

However, that not every speaker maker has adopted time and phase matched designs should tell you something about how important it seems. If time coherence was that revolutionary no one would be able to sell any other kind of speaker.  However this is not the case.

Make up your own mind, of course and buy what you will enjoy.

I think maybe it's a mistake to learn to tell speaker polarity by ear. :) I mean, let's say you can learn this through experimentation and feedback. You go from 2016 when you can't tell speaker polarity, to sometime in 2017 when you can. Doesn't that just make your comfortable music world more limited?

Best,


Erik

Forgot to mention, you can experiment with full-range drivers, those that have no crossover, relatively cheaply. Madisound is selling a complete kit on sale. Some people get a couple of hits of that and never look back to multi-way speakers again.