Calling Aesthetix IO Users


Hello,
I was switching some cables around a few days ago and forgot that I have both positive and negative RCA inputs. I switched the connections from + to - to test the sound on several occasions, well on some music it seemed the soundstage got smaller and some others didn't have any effect. Did more swapping and I settled back on the original settings, +.

Question: Who really swaps the input cables all of the time to play music? I tried several times to determine what sounds best, but sometimes it was just so minute to determine anything. What settings do you use with the RCA inputs on the Aesthetix IO. I might experiment more this weekend. Thanks.

Ciao,
Audioquest4life
audioquest4life

Showing 1 response by patrickamory

I posted this response to your question on Vinyl Asylum - here it is again.

Since absolute polarity varies from recording to recording, there is no "right" setting. You have to know which labels used non-inverted polarity and which used inverted polarity. Some labels varied, and indeed some tracks on some records vary (and on multitrack recordings some of the different tracks were recorded with different absolute polarities -a fact of life in the complexity of modern recording studios).

The 2 sets of Aesthetix RCA outputs are simply so that you can keep polarity the same through your system, so you know exactly what your're getting (check your other components to see whether they maintain polarity or are inverted polarity, then figure out what you're getting out of your speakers - ASSUMING of course that you know the polarity of the recording you're playing).

If you have a polarity-reverse switch on your linestage, then of course you can use this to switch between the two.

But in any event many people can't hear the difference between absolute and inverted polarity. Some people can. Maybe you're one of them.

In any event, it's much more important to keep your left and right channels in phase than to have correct absolute polarity!