Sorry, if this has been treated before but I can’t find any topic on the matter.
I own an Accuphase A-46 power-amp and have it directly connected (balanced XLR) to my PWD.
On the back of the A-46 I have two choices for XLR-polarity/phase.
The attached picture explains this.
In which position should I use the A-46: left or right?
My impression is that the “right”-position gives the best result: best imaging and sound is more naturally
Attached files 
To the right. The standard is pin two hot (+ or non-inverting).
@elk Thank you! So my impression was right and I will continue this way.
By “standard” do you mean USA-standard, European Standard or is it an international standard with Japan as an exception?
Historically, it was the U.S. that did it differently than Europe and Japan. Many U.S. manufacturers previously wired pin 3 hot. This was decades ago however.
There remain some manufacturers in various countries that still wire pin 3 hot, but it is uncommon. It does not hurt anything to connect such equipment together as pin 1 is always the ground, but phase is reversed.
Historically, it was the U.S. that did it differently than Europe and Japan. Many U.S. manufacturers previously wired pin 2 hot. This was decades ago however.
There remain some manufacturers in various countries that still wire pin 2 hot, but it is uncommon. It does not hurt anything to connect such equipment together as pin 1 is always the ground, but phase is reversed.
Just to clarify Mr Elk, I thought pin 2 hot is the current (albeit loose) standard. Pin 3 hot was a protocol used in the US some time ago that is now rare in the audio world. Sony, Marantz and some others still use pin 3 hot, but they are exceptions.
Absolutely correct. I am sorry for the typo. I fixed my second post. I got it right in the first post.
Thanks!
@huub_maastricht In a previous post where I asked if the DirectStream DAC had phase/polarity reversal still available on the remote, Paul confirmed that it will be. The reason I asked is that having this ability to switch between “normal” and “inverted” on the remote is a feature that I use all the time on my PWD-MkII.
I’ve found that the absolute polarity/phase of recordings does not follow a standard and that one has to select the proper setting based on listening to each recording. The diffences are obvious and the best sounding setting can be determined in a second or two by using the phase button on the DAC’s remote. Usually I can tell if the initial setting needs to be reversed without needing to compare it to the alternate setting.
Our local user group just had a get together at my place a few weeks ago and everyone could easily hear the difference when I tested the setting for each recording. This also showed that there was not a consistent setting across recordings. So, I wouldn’t worry about which way any component in your system delivers the absolute phase/polarity of the signal (“normal” or “inverted” relative to the input to that component). Just use the phase button on the PerfectWave DAC (or DirectStream DAC) to select the correct setting for a particular recording.