rabbitz said:
Well, I knew "A" is the inner cable as stated by the text in the pic
Otherwise it's indeed difficult to tell which is which on that picture.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this inductor polarity question being raised here, for years I had thought I was the only soul in this world who had ever wondered if current direction in coils actually mattered. Techies I have talked to unanimously agree that it makes no difference but I only spoke to two of them so my "poll" was hardly statistically reliable.
My interest in the question was spawned years ago when I noticed that one of the air cored Solen inductors in one of my Linn's crossover was wired differently than the others. This puzzled me since the inductors on the other speaker's crossover were all wired the same way. The speakers sounded fine but nonetheless I vaguely suspected that single malt indulgence at the factory may have had something to do with this, however my reversing of the wiring produced no difference in sound whatsoever. Regardless, I have been seeking a definitive answer to coil polarity ever since.
Info on the Net regarding this matter is rather scant; there are a few references to non polarized inductors but none of the coils the info pertained to were of the type used in crossovers. I was hoping to find authoritative statements such as "inductors are non polarized" or vice versa but no such luck. The picture posted in this thread is the first online document I have ever seen to directly address the issue. But now I'm even more intrigued because the wiring as described in the photo is opposite the Linn's. But on the other hand, I have seem other high end speakers with coils wired the other way.
rabbitz said:
My thinking exactly.
And for that reason I'll wire the coils as per the document for the time being. I finished soldering a crossover that way last night and even though I can't swear it sounds better than the other one I had wired in reverse polarity, so to speak (with the current exiting from the inner wire), I can't say it sounds worse either. Imaging remains stable. I will nonetheless rewire it so that both match the document's polarity. I figure the worse that can happen is that it makes no difference.
Since most audio systems have a frequency response that drops off below 20Hz, it is true that the signal to a speaker is AC.
Still it can be quite an interesting discussion, many instuments are not AC: for example you blow air into horns never the other way around, an analysis of their acoustic output signal shows a strong DC component. Additionally there is the perenial question of absolute phase of the music. If it were truly AC that question wouldnt exist.
My system has an absolute phase switch, I've experimented many times. It changes how the music sounds. Although I have never been able to tell which position is absolutely correct (for a given recording) I can tell you that one way guitars are more forward and horns a little blattier, but I can not tell if this is this the right or wrong polarity.
Wait. isn't this where I came in? Polarity on an AC signal?
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