Impact of phase inversion by preamp

These statements are by no means universal truths :)

EXACTLY!

My point is to get people to consider what's behind the faceplate. Far too much HiFi is buzzword-bingo.

Quite simply, operating the phase inversion switch is subtle- on multi-channel recordings you can't hear any effect at all.

Then I would say that the speakers may not be well aligned. The point of the mentioned test was to determine the audibility of polarity. We used polarity correct recordings of acoustic instruments, 80's pop with all live players recorded with polarity correct mics, analogue reverb [plate and chamber] and 80's pop with drum machines, synths, digital reverb and effects. The polarity correct channel inversion was a side show to demonstrate that identical seldom exists.

100db CMMR is excellent. I've endured 'differential' circuits that barely made 60 at some frequency and drifted all over the map with temperature. No offense, but I note that neither CMRR nor the bandwidth over which 100db is attained is listed on the MP3 web page. The only mention of CMRR on the Atma-Sphere site is an explanation here http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/balanced.php

25 or 30 years ago Clark Johnson wrote about polarity in a book titled THE WOOD EFFECT.
If I recall it had listed many LPs and what polarity they were recorded in. This came out before CDs.

OK, you made me do it. The whole story according to the Polarity Pundit. Metaphors be with you!

http://www.audiogeorge.com/the-polarity-list/

@rsf507 - That seminal treatise(The Wood Effect) is mentioned in each of the articles, I referenced above. In the first listed Stereophile article; contained in a somewhat blistering response. The very first article also posts a list(at the end), of some CDs and their relative phase(with the majority of players out there), as well as a few CDPs/DACs and their phase output, which may be of some interest.

The Wood Effect was published in 1988, after the advent of the CD.