Out of Phase Speakers

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Doug Sclar, Jul 31, 2004.

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  1. Doug Sclar

    Doug Sclar Forum Legend Thread Starter

    Location:
    The OC
    This is a topic that drives me crazy at times. I'm pretty sure that most members here can easily tell when speakers are in phase simply by listening to them. I can't tell you how many times I've noticed OOP speakers setup in places as varied as audio stores, friends homes, and even recording studio's and offices of record company executives. I can't understand how these people can not hear this.

    I have a friend that I visit each year who has an old Sony tv with twin speakers. Now this is not a stereo tv. Every time I go there I notice that the internal speakers on his tv are seemingly out of phase. It just drives me crazy. I tried many times to show this to him and have been unable to do so. To my ears, while sitting between the speakers, the sound is seemingly ok for a small node, but by moving my head an inch to the left or right makes the image shift behind me. This is so obvious to me that I am completely baffled that he can't hear this. No matter where he moves his head, he claims the sound always seems to come from the tv.

    Now, normal OOP sound generally doesn't provide a central phantom image, even for a small node in front of the speakers, so I realized something odd was going on there. I told him it almost sounds like some kind of 'width enhancing' circuitry. Hearing that, he told me that this tv did have such a feature, and he went to the tv and pushed the 'expand' button. Well, if you can believe, that put the sound right back close to normal phase and everything sounded almost normal. At this point I suggested that perhaps he had the expand switch confused and when it was in he thought it was out. Well that turned out to not be the case. In any event, he said he never used that feature as he couldn't tell the difference. I volunteered to open his tv and reverse the wiring to one speaker, but he said to not bother as he couldn't hear any of this.

    How on earth can people not hear this? I don't understand. To me it's not much different than being out in the rain and not realizing it was raining.

    OK I can possibly understand a layman having trouble grasping this, but walking into a Circuit City and hearing a good deal of their demo setups wired wrong, or even worse, an audio professional not being aware is truly baffling. How on earth can you mix or evaluate a mix with OOP speakers.

    And I once got a Circuit City employee to challenge me. He looked at the wiring and proclaimed that I was wrong as they were seemingly wired properly. Well, there is no guarantee that a speaker is wired correctly internally. I asked him to humor me and try reversing the wires to one speaker. He was shocked to hear the difference once I told him what to listen for. I've seen JBL professional studio monitors wired wrong internally. Observing wiring polarity will get you right most of the time, but not always.

    Trained ears don't generally lie. They see (hear) the big picture and factor everything in.
     
  2. Jamie Tate

    Jamie Tate New Member

    Location:
    Nashville
    One of the Tower Records here in town used to have their speakers out of phase. Finally I said something to them and the next time I went in they'd fixed the problem.
     
  3. -=Rudy=-

    -=Rudy=- ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪ Staff

    Location:
    US
    Weird! I know the Sony TV I used to have here had a "wide" mode that sounded really phasey, but it was also a stereo TV.

    Agreed with the out of phase problem--drives me insane too! Try it with headphones--I swear, it sounds like your ears are being sucked out of your head!! :sigh:

    My buddy's mustard yellow '73 Chevy Nova had a pair of 6x9s in the rear. After a couple of rides, I told him one of the speakers was wired backwards. He crawled into the trunk, did a quick rewire, then was amazed that his speakers had bass! :D

    If phase problems drive you nuts, do not listen to an LP processed with HAECO-CSG, which throws one channel 90 degrees out of phase. Supposedly to make it mono compatible. :shake: Some good songs are ruined by that process. :(

    Also, never get the stereo Capitol LP of Nat King Cole's Just One Of Those Things...I'd never have thought a major studio would create an LP with some of the tracks out of phase! (Any wonder Steve remixed and remastered it?!? :thumbsup: )
     
  4. Doug Sclar

    Doug Sclar Forum Legend Thread Starter

    Location:
    The OC
    They also made a device that summed all the low frequencies making them mono for easier cutting on lp. Just horrid.
     
  5. Drives me nuts aswell.

    Easiest way to show the problem to a layman. Get them to stand sideways on to the source, so that one ear is pointing straight at it. Get them to cover over the other ear to block any distraction. Get them to walk forwards, then backwards. At the sweetspot, and lot of sound will get cancelled out. Oops! (no pun intended).

    Sometimes when I've been stood in front of some speakers in a studio, someone has hit phase reverse on one channel - I've nearly lost my balance and fallen over because the "im-balance" in the sound is so wierd!
     
  6. fjhuerta

    fjhuerta New Member

    Location:
    México City
    How's THIS for crazy & stupid: I once decided to disassemble my old Definitive Technology speakers, just to check them out. I found out that, while the speakers should have been bipolar (everything in phase) the rear tweeter in one set was out of phase relative to the rest of the drivers. I decided to unscrew every DefTech speaker I owned (my entire surround set) and found out every speaker had at least one driver out of phase (sometimes two).

    That was stupid, and I decided never to buy any DefTech products again. And it made me curious as to how many speaker manufacturers make the same mistake.
     
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