Riddle me this....

Many factors are at play...

So much than most people dont realize...

Your point about microphones is really good point...

 Why  "sound liaison" recording album are so good ?

They used ONE MICROPHONE...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQtwN4zO8is

Interesting stuff! It makes me wonder if the reason that some uncomplicated recordings (I mean a Blumlein pair of microphones, not post-processing or manipulation, like the old Opus 3 recordings) sound so good because there is no opportunity to introduce various tracks that are out of phase?

By the way as an aside i like a lot one of the best recording sound company : TACET only tubes recording...

A german recording company using ONLY tubes for recording process...

The differences is staggering in my audio system ( S.S. amplifier and dac with TOP headphones though 😊) ..

I listen to Haydn quatuor with Auryn Quartet...

and also Vivaldi four seasons . Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra
Wojciech Rajski
 Daniel Gaede - Violin ..

This cd is  one of my best testing sound cd...

my best recording ever with one mic. Sound Liaison albums ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiZ13MIx6CA&t=68s

https://www.tacet.de/main/seite1.php?language=en&filename=tubeonly.php

@stringreen ....a mailbox....(but not limited to corners for quite awhile)

@dogberry

It‘s precisely the initial pulse of the wave that defines phase, or for the purposes of this discussion more accurately polarity. Think of a wind instrument being blown rather than sucked ( in analogy to a speaker Diaphragm moving out rather than being sucked in with the corresponding air flow. And it is audible despite what certain theorists claim ex cathedra.

Just as an aside: this is the major advantage of a point source over multiple speaker units interfering with each others‘ phase.

Explain to me why the phase switch ought to be in the digital domain, as opposed to the analog domain in a fully balanced analog circuit, where ground floats. That's assuming of course that one only wants to be able to change phase by 180 degrees.  If one wants to change phase by other parameters, e.g., 90 degrees, 270 degrees or etc, then of course that is best done digitally.  But here we are talking about the effect of changing phase by 180 degrees. 

My ESLs are full range with no crossover. Is that phase coherent?