Absolute Polarity—La De Da De De, La De Da De Da (3/5)

Is it Absolute Phase or Absolute Polarity? As you like, it really makes no real difference. In letting the sound out of your speakers—getting them to sound good, with big full rich sound and the ability recreate the soundfield contained in the recording—you need a playback system that is working and working well. To recreate a stereophonic soundfield you critically need a pair of matched loudspeakers that are connected to matching amplifiers so phase between channels is the same for as much of the bandwidth as possible—when the amps say to the loudspeakers push, you want the loudspeakers to push (or both pull). You don’t want one pushing while the other is pulling. This is not absolute phase but simply hooking up the speakers to the amps correctly, red to red, and black to black. Connecting speakers to amps so both channels can cause correct reconstruction of the soundfield is critical. However, to concern yourself with how the snare drum was recorded, and the rest of the drum kit, the vocals, the strings, brass, keys… forget it, at this point you know nothing of the absolute phase relations of the recording and very likely a waste of your time to consider; a rabbit hole long abandoned by rabbits. Sure, it might be fruitful for those engaged in some science and research, but this quick post is not written for those few.

I am not saying discussing absolute phase, or is it absolute polarity, is completely useless, it can be fun and it might even be satisfying, and for sure it is philosophically and methodologically interesting for those that are waist (or is it waste) deep in audio.

I think absolute phase is kinda like the song The Beat Goes On by Sonny & Cher. The song is fun, especially in context of when it was written, and the bass-line is great, I really do like the song, but lyrically it is vacant, all save the chorus. But I think to concern yourself with absolute phase—guessing your are one in love with music, sound and its playback—is not going to make any real difference to the quality of your sound nor is it likely to result in any real understanding.

La De Da De De

La De Da De Da

And The Beat Goes On