Reversing absolute phase

BTW, anyone who says this isn't an issue doesn't realize that the compression of air molecules happens before the rarefaction of any waveform that we can hear...except perhaps the duck's quack.

I've always wondered why those don't echo...

Gannon...How do you know that? Did you make some measurements? I have observed (while traveling in the Suez canal) that the bow wave of a ship is a trough before the crest. Likewise a Tsunami is preceded by the ocean going out before the wave comes in. In the case of sound in air...consider a drum. Surely the polarity of the sound wave will differ depending on which side of the drum you hear it from.

The behavior of a sound wave propogating in air is a whole lot more complex than you think. And anyway, as others have noted the polarity of signal on recordings is so mixed up that, IMHO, it is a waste of time to worry about it.

As one might guess, I agree completely with Eldartford and others who expressed similar sentiments. But it goes back to what I stated above: if you DO care a lot and if you CAN hear the "difference" consistently, get yourself a preamp with a phase switch, preferably on a remote control.

The Herron Audio VTSP-2 preamp has absolute phase on its remote. Attention to absolute phase via a remote is just one of the little things that add up to a great sounding system. It goes along with dressing cables, cleaning contacts regularly, running degaussing sweeps, etc. If we were normal, we wouldn't be audiophiles ;-)

The Aesthetix Calypso is another that provides this essential (to me) feature. Nice that it's also a great-sounding preamp.