Absolute polarity test

Wow, further to my comment on the other thread, being able to reliably hear that a good 320kbps lossy is lossy is indeed pretty epic!

 

I was talking about this with @ext1 and suddenly had the idea that ability to hear absolute polarity may be linked to ability to tolerate EQ. If one can't hear the phase fuckery introduced by EQ, then maybe one also can't hear absolute polarity (like me). But then I remembered @purr1n said the DEQ2496 was (fairly) transparent, but he can hear absolute polarity. So maybe that blows my theory.

 

Just dunking this here cuz I was clearing stuff out and realised I'd forgotten to share here. It's audible on everything but stuff that seems to invert absolute polarity e.g. the MCTH and the Andromeda 2020 (I'm pretty sure the Andros invert, at least) makes this much easier. The mobile screenshot was with the IEMs, the "wow they're taking a photo of a PC screen do they even know screenshots exist" was on desktop rig.

 

Can you describe the differences you hear?

 

It's mainly like a blunting of center image? Makes things sound really weird and diffuse while simultaneously being very in-my-head, especially for simple things that I just record on my mic setup; the effect is actually less bothersome on full mixes IMO. Bit more bloom to the very low end and a... reshaping of overtones? I kinda get a slight headache that reminds me of when I try wearing headphones with ANC enabled, though the ANC headphones hurt more.

Recorded something quick:

https://on.soundcloud.com/JcF419u69PJ5gzvf6