SH Spotlight SH Forum members: Are your speakers in correct phase?

My friend Karen works at Capitol Records. She has a little stereo in her cubicle that was installed for her. It is pitifully out of phase with vocals that sound like they are coming from the elevator. When we offered to fix it for her by swapping out a wire she got this look of horror on her face and said "No, we are not allowed to touch our system."

 

Yes, it's the first thing I notice and, yes, I've fixed it for friends.

 

Yes, once you hear what out of phase sounds like you never forget it. I've made this wiring correction for friends occasionally.

I know "absolute phase" can be turned into fetish by some audiophiles. Steve do you strive for absolute phase or polarity when you are mastering?

 

no matter the color of the wires, just use a single battery(1.5v or 2 battery=3v) and plug in the wires to test.
if the speaker move to the front, the wire in the positive of the battery is the positive(+) pole.
if the speaker move to back, the polarity is inverted.

cheers!

 

Steve,

While it is imperative that one checks their system absolute phase aren't many recordings done out of phase? This is one reason that I am thrilled that on my Soundsmith phono pre I've got a phase reverse switch. I could swear that I know which of the Living Stereos are recorded out of phase.

 

Many thanks, Mr. Hoffman! Believe it or not, I had the copper/silver business reversed! Good thing I had evaluated and judged my music so far on headphones!!

 

Back in the 70's, we discovered some JBL professional monitors with internal drivers wired backwards. On top of that, JBL used to use black as positive and red as negative.

 

I just got a new amp and speakers and have been listening to lots of mono. They sound great with a solid, deep center image. Still in phase here.

 

Can't read through all the posts so I hope this hasn't been asked yet.

Steve, the company that makes my cables, Groneberg, recommends that all cables be connected in the direction away from the pre-amp. So, the writing on the cables from pre to CD would start at the pre, even though the direction of the music is the opposite. Writing on cables from pre to amp would also start at pre. Seems odd to me but that's what I do. I think I tried reversing the direction from pre to CD but could hear no difference.

 

To complicate things a bit some many Conrad Johnson products you have to do things backwards. Like for my preamp I actually have to put the positive on he negatvie and the negative on the positive because of the way the preamp is made. If I did it the normal way my system would be out of phase.

I see you covered this

 

So if you have phono preamp that inverts phase (I don't) and you correct for it what happens to C.D playback?

 

Say the internal wiring is wrong on both speakers. On the back of the speakers, when I connect the speaker wire, should I flip the wires? Or if both speakers are essentially moving the same way, will it sound any different. Will this make it out is in, in is out?

 

Good question. When I was 16 I bought a pair of Dynaco A50 speakers and they always hurt my ears after a while of listening. I kept checking polarity but never thought that their internal wiring might be wrong and which could have been fixed by inverting the speaker cables. I believe that was the problem, unless they were just bad speakers. I traded them in as soon as I could for a pair of EPI.

 

Also, can the polarity get switched at the crossover? I'm convinced that one of my A7's has something swapped on the horn. Its not as clean sounding as its twin.

 

Well the best way to know is to use the old battery trick mentioned several times earlier in this thread. That is a clear way to tell which terminal is positive and which is negative.

If both speakers move the same way you are assured that they are in relative phase with each other. Once again this is relative phase and not absolute phase.

 

Laughing about the record company example. Great information, Steve! Many Thanks.

 

Hi!

I haven`t read thru the whole thread, but I thought that might be of interest / use to someone here:

Download this (ZIP) file:
http://www.tmr-audio.de/diverses/knack_knack.zip

unpack it and burn it (maybe several times) on a CD and replay it with your player(s).

If your replay chain (including speakers ...) is "in phase", the woofer should make a bump outwards. If all of your speakers make it this way, they are in relative phase also.

The file is a short positive pulse, so beware of too high volume levels!

Cheers
Harald

 

If you like the sound of the Beatles remasters then your speakers are out of phase.

 

Absolutely!

 

So that's what my problem is!

 

Well, it's one of your problems.

 

it's irrelevant Pug, in phase don't sounds better.

 

I'm in phase, I hate that out of phase sound. I hear it all the time in stores & restaurants, etc. I've corrected out of phase systems of many friends & family members, and it's always funny to see the looks on their faces when they here their system with corrected phase.

Cheap wire and good wire do sound different, though, it's not just the size of the wire that matters. I once heard this demonstrated using a $120 run of the mill shelf system, where a respectable brand of 12 gauge silver and copper was put to shame by some mid to upper end speaker cables. I would never have thought that you would have heard this unless it was on a high end system, but the sound was much warmer and smoother, and the sound stage opened up much wider with the better cables.

 

Shhh!

If that ever gets around, EMI will go bankrupt before the year's over!