Chris,

I would think there would be an impact of absolute phase on
transients(drums, Tchaikovsky's cannon, cymbols, xylophones, etc.).

Yeah, you might think that, but the only way to really know for sure is to
try it. I've never heard a difference, except with contrived tests that have
substantial content at frequencies below the loudspeaker's cutoff. That is,
only when you drive the speaker into non-linearity might you get an audible
difference.

I want my woofers and mids to push toward me when reproducing transients,
not away.

That seems pretty unrealistic to me. Suppose you're miking someone playing
claves and the mike is in front of them. They might hit one clave into the
other, or the second one into the first. They might strike toward themselves
or away. These combinations will send the initial transient either toward or
away from the mike or a listener in the room.

Or consider a snare drum all by itself separate from a drum kit. You put a
single mike a few feet above the drum pointing down. The initial stick
impact sends the drum head away from the mike, and away from a listener or
the player hovering over the drum.

As much as it may *seem* to make sense that you want initial transients to
move the speaker cone toward you, or that the original polarity must be
maintained, in my experience it really doesn't make any difference.

--Ethan