Quote:
Originally Posted by turntable
Anthony. Do you own a cj preamp?. It is very easy to hear the difference. Somewhat exaggerated treble and lack of bass are side effects of not in phase, let alone the singer breathing in when he is supposed to be breathing out. I purposely play my supertweeters phase reversed as they provide a little more sparkle than wired phase correct.
From the cj et3 manual - its the same on every cj preamp manual.
Absolute Phase
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Hi Shane,
Yes I have an ET5. Whether my system is set up phase correct or phase inverted does not change how bright the treble is. It certainly does not make a recording of someone that is breathing out, sound like they are breathing in. It does not even change the soundstage depth or width.
Where you say "I purposely play my supertweeters phase reversed as they provide a little more sparkle than wired phase correct". If you alternate wiring your supertweeters (trying it in correct phase and inverted phase) while not changing the phase of your main speakers, you will get different cancelation or boost of the frequencies around the crossover frequency (between the main speakers and the supertweeters). So of course it will sound different (with more or less sparkle) if you are only changing the phase of the supertweeters while keeping the phase of the mains the same. This is the same issue as having a subwoofer the same phase, or opposite phase with the main speakers. It is the same sort of thing as switching between zero phase and 180 degrees phase on your subwoofer - it drastically changes the sound.
This is not the same as having your system phase correct or phase inverted.
The real question is, if you play your speakers in the setup they are in now (with whatever phase you have picked for mains and supertweeters and any others), and then you swap the phase of _all_ of them, is there any difference in sound when playing music and is there difference in sparkle?
But anyway - like I said it is debatable whether correct or inverted phase (of the system) is audible in music and people will debate this.
If you still find this conversation interesting and worth pursuing (I do), there are some questions I have about correct or inverted phase.
If phase being correct or inverted is important, at which frequency range is it important? I ask this because a lot of speakers are designed with for example the midrange drivers phase/polarity wired opposite to the other drivers. This is a valid choice by the speaker designer and it typically relates to the crossover slopes/type used (example types of crossover first order, second order, third order, fourth order crossovers. Not sure which type benefits from inverting the phase of the drivers in relation to each other but some do). Not all speakers are designed this way but a lot are.
So in cases like that, is it more important to have the bass phase correct at the expense of the other frequency ranges? Or is it more important to have the midrange phase correct at the expense of the other ranges? Or the treble? Whenever I read about people claiming that the phase of the system is important, they don't cover this important question. It is not mentioned in the section from the ET3 manual you quoted and I have not found it anywhere else either. CJ does mention "The effect is especially apparent on plucked string sounds" so that could be midrange or bass? Or maybe even treble. Which is more important?
Anthony