When it comes to amazing new discoveries, was it Barnum who said, "There's an audiophile born every minute"?*
There is always this belief about returning to some innocent Garden of Eden where all recordings deliver flat and pure-of-phase sound to your preamp. No more true of those glorious Mercury and early DGG pressings than anything else. Lots of their "art" was created in the lab and cutting studio by talented production teams.
At the other end, even if you could deliver flat and pure-of-phase electricity to your voice coil (or coils), all hell breaks out from your speaker terminals on the trip to your ears.
Its naive simplified textbook-diagram physics when Toole's psychophysics is really needed.
B.
* or did he say, "There's a sucker born every....". Wikipedia isn't convinced Barnum ever said either.
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Like with so many perceived changes or differences, whether they are subjectively better is just that, and quite often a change in itself is perceived as an improvement. That said I doubt it does any harm. You could even perhaps switch it in and out at intervals for a never-ending "betterness" 
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Like with so many perceived changes or differences, whether they are subjectively better is just that, and quite often a change in itself is perceived as an improvement. That said I doubt it does any harm. You could even perhaps switch it in and out at intervals for a never-ending "betterness"
Judging from everything being said phase seems to be in constant flux so tuning for an overall ‘best’ for your system in your room up to your system capability/limitation is all one can do......I’m assuming phase shifts are compounded by reflections at lp? So tuning by ear, as subjective as that may be it’s still going by what we ‘hear’......no?
It's not due to comb filtering. Relevant phase shifts at frequencies above 2 kHz aren't perceived with headphones either. Somewhere around 2 kHz, we start using the magnitude differences between our ears rather than phase differences to localize sound. Phase just isn't important to our auditory system above 2 kHz.
Hey, don't waste time on ... you konw. Every human has different physiology and that alone tells that everybody is more sensitive to certain things and less to others. Pluss the hearing mechanism includes psychology, so it's not wise to try wate time and energy on declarations "I can't hear it so nobody can".
So how much phase shift (above 2k) is typical for average listening?
180 out is certainly audible .....where does it become inaudible?
Bob
Here's a test that anyone interested in phase distortion who has a little bit of filtering knowledge can do for themselves:
Generate an FIR all-pass filter that introduces phase distortion.
Download foobar.
Download the foobar convolver.
Play whatever music/sounds you think might highlight the phase distortion, and turn the filter on and off.
If you find something you think highlights the distortion, then convolve the filter with that file off-line, and generate a version that has the distortion in it.
Download foobar ABX utility.
Test your actual ability to discern the differences.
Generate an FIR all-pass filter that introduces phase distortion.
Download foobar.
Download the foobar convolver.
Play whatever music/sounds you think might highlight the phase distortion, and turn the filter on and off.
If you find something you think highlights the distortion, then convolve the filter with that file off-line, and generate a version that has the distortion in it.
Download foobar ABX utility.
Test your actual ability to discern the differences.
Ok......simpler maybe!
Research leads me to ‘grossly exaggerated shifts in phase can be audible’
I’m assuming 180’ is ‘grossly’ as in the giant nulls and soundstage degradation one hears when the tweeter is wired ‘backwards’.
Now when playing around with different orders of xo’s and you end up 90’ out of phase on paper one has to decide which speaker polarity ‘sounds’ better.......there’s always a difference......and it’s not psychosomatic because I usually get so lost I have no idea what I’m doing.
Then how do I know it’s not just random? .....because I usually end up with the same results for a given ‘on paper’ issue.
I don’t have the technology or the expertise to do your test.....wish I did!
Edit .......research also led me to this subject is still highly debated !
Bob
Research leads me to ‘grossly exaggerated shifts in phase can be audible’
I’m assuming 180’ is ‘grossly’ as in the giant nulls and soundstage degradation one hears when the tweeter is wired ‘backwards’.
Now when playing around with different orders of xo’s and you end up 90’ out of phase on paper one has to decide which speaker polarity ‘sounds’ better.......there’s always a difference......and it’s not psychosomatic because I usually get so lost I have no idea what I’m doing.
Then how do I know it’s not just random? .....because I usually end up with the same results for a given ‘on paper’ issue.
I don’t have the technology or the expertise to do your test.....wish I did!
Edit .......research also led me to this subject is still highly debated !
Bob
Gotcha. I'm a bit confused though about using phase difference to localise sound, my understanding is it's interaural time difference?
They don't do that. They tilt their head if they are confused and try to get a view from a bit different angle.
That's because the sound reflected and absorbed is completely different to the one with no snow. They are indeed confused.
Sorry......no confusion there, our house in the NC mountains is surrounded by acres of hay fields, I used to get up in the morning and watch them hunt mice (or whatever vermin) in fresh powder sometimes over a foot deep by sound and sound alone......they would stalk until they heard their prey, then stop tilt their head back and forth a couple times to pinpoint and they jump straight up into the air diving head first into the fresh snow.....most of the time they’d come up shaking breakfast in their mouth.
I even catch myself doing it if I hear a odd sound.....especially at night.
And although I may be described as confused half the time......It’s me trying to focus an ear, this I know.
Bob
Yes, it makes a difference. It also affects the response which unfortunately makes it harder to tell.
If by affects response you mean the ‘null’ then how would that make it harder to hear?
Maybe my confusion here is that when I think ‘hear the differences’ I mean the resulting effects that happen ...... as in maybe can’t hear the actual phase change but hearing the damages it does to the overall sound?
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