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

The 1st Stereophile test CD has a pink noise track recorded both in stereo and mono that I find useful to check phasing.

 

I learned many years ago that an amplifier must never be powered on "open circuit", i.e. without a load. Whenever I have to disconnect speakers, I always make sure that the amplifier is powered down. Does anyone know if this is still necessary with solid-state amps or is it just a habit carried over from using valve amps?

 

My amp is powered up 24/7 so I'm grateful it has a mute switch as it allows me to plug/unplug cables without turning the amp off.

 

Very necessary. Trust me.

 

That is true but I always check connections carefully before I turn off the mute switch.

 

• Was going nuts chasing wires a few weeks ago until I realized that one of my speakers was accidentally cross-wired internally, i.e., the connections on the inside of the speaker going to the clips on the back were flipped. As soon as I reversed the wires to 'un-cross' the connection from the clips to the amp everything fell into place.
• I also found some phase test audio clips on YouTube to be extremely helpful, and frankly a little more obvious than playing a mono recording.

 

Which, when you think about it is a safe practice with anything electrical.

 

Some speaker designers do wire the tweeter out of phase.

 

No, this was the main driver. I realized it sounded 'off' but was confused because the wiring looked fine. As soon as I flipped the one set of wires though, the sound came into phase.