I was shown about 40 years ago that changing the absolute phase of a stereo system is not only audible, but is essential to be changed for each disc, sometimes for each track, in order to hear the frequency response and soundstage air at its best. I believe the ability to hear this is a matter of self training, as is all audiophile activity. It may be that multitrack rock recordings don't benefit much, but more minimally miked classical, jazz, and pop recordings certainly do. With one phase setting a centrally placed vocalist is placed in front of the speakers, in the other setting she is slightly behind the speaker plane and the subtle breathiness that gives living presence to her voice (no pun intended) becomes audible. Admittedly the differences are subtle, but we spend thousands of dollars on sometimes extreme subtleties. Note that I speak of absolute phase, not relative phase between speakers, and phasing the subwoofers is a different problem. I would not buy a preamp that lacks an absolute phase control accessible from a remote unless I had the same on a DAC, again remote accessible. I'm willing to give up a little to have the ability to adjust sound from the listening position (I currently have a Jeff Rowland preamp that does this).
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