Purpose
Does absolute phase matter? (not to be confused with wiring speakers out of phase with each other - see our Stereo Polarity Check).
Absolute phase means the preservation of signal phase all the way from microphone to loudspeaker, so that an instrument that sends a wave of positive pressure towards the audience/microphone is reproduced as a similar "push" from the loudspeaker (and the singer taking a deep breath, by the loudspeaker sucking in! ;-)
The audibility of preserving the absolute phase is a controversy that has rumbled on since the 1970s (an example here). You be the judge with this blind test!
Files being tested
| Original | Inverted |
These files present a monaural acoustic guitar riff, with its original and inverted polarity.
The Test
| Original Inverted | |
| Listen to [?] then vote — multiple guesses not allowed (your vote triggers a new draw) | |
To pass a blind test, you will need to perform 10 trials at least, obtain a high score and reach a high confidence level: 95% is standard to rate statistical significance. It means that your score outperforms random guesses by 95%. There is still a probability that you just got lucky though, 5%. To reduce such probability to 1%, keep testing until you reached a confidence level of 99%.
External Links
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Take up the challenge
- Find the smallest difference in sound levels you can detect.
The Level Series: 6dB 3dB 1dB 0.5dB 0.2dB 0.1dB - Find the highest frequency you can reliably hear.
The Frequency Series: 10kHz 11k 12k 13k 14k 15k 16k 17k 18k 19k 20kHz - Find the smallest difference in pitch (frequency) you can hear.
The Pitch Series: 50c 20c 10c 5c 2c 1c - Find the shortest timing difference you can reliably hear. NEW
The Timing Series: 1ms 2ms 5ms 10ms 20ms 50ms 100ms - Find the highest dynamic range offered by your listening environment.
The Dynamic Range Series: 36dB 42dB 48dB 54dB 60dB 66dB 72dB 78dB - Do you have the absolute hearing ability?
The Perfect Pitch Blind Test: C Scale Chromatic - Are your ears sensitive to Absolute Phase?
The Absolute Polarity Blind Test: Here - Can you hear a difference between 16-bit and 8-bit audio files?
The 16-bit v/s 8-bit Blind Test
