Polarity

[Myren]

My amp has a switch on the back of it to invert the left speakers polarity. Um... it appears to have gotten flipped in the move at the beginning of the semester.

I was just thinking it was the crappy room acoustics devastating my bass. Erm, not so much. I confess - I've never realized just how drastic a problem inverted polarities were. I knew from a physics standpoint, but to actually hear the difference... ho-ly-****.

At least when I get home, I'll be back to full potential. Let this be a reminder to everyone: make sure your polarities arent crossed.

Sorry, I know this is a pretty lame post, but I really cant believe the difference. Forgive my overly excited self.

Myren

 

[Myren]

heh. i guess i consider this post to be a community service post. i figure, if it makes a difference to just one person, its all worthwhile, so check your polarities everyone! =]

much love.
Myren

 

[GRollins]

Once upon a time, I and some friends used to think it was fun to put the speakers out of phase on purpose so that we could listen to that kinda spaced-out sound for a while.

Grey

P.S.: I'm sliding this thread over to the Loudspeaker forum, as it's more in that vein than Solid State. (Very few amps have a polarity switch.)

 

[Myren]

what would happen if you put your speakers back to back and crossed polarities?

i'd do it myself, just to see, but moving 95 lbs speakers around kinda sucks. having no space to move them in sucks more so.

Myren

 

[VAMiller]

Won't mention any names, but...

One less-than-stellar audio dealer that I knew of in the '70s used to deliberately wire the "other guys" decent speakers out of phase in their demo room to make them sound bad when compared with the "house brand", which of course was wired correctly. They're out of business now but were quite successful when they were around for many years.

As we all know, audio can be a dirty mind-game sometimes.

VAM

 

[Ignite]

Re: Won't mention any names, but...

One less-than-stellar audio dealer that I knew of in the '70s used to deliberately wire the "other guys" decent speakers out of phase in their demo room to make them sound bad when compared with the "house brand", which of course was wired correctly.

That's nothing. A fairly reputable store a half hour's drive from my house purposely damages the "other guy's" speakers. I heard an all-audax set that had horribly muddy tweeters. It sounded as though somebody coated them to lower thier frequency response, because nothing over maybe 7kHz was audible. I only suspect they coated them because they've tampered with demo sets before to make them sound worse. As have they used higher quality components in thier own demo sets then what is in every set they make.

I never ever shop there, because I know I can't trust them.

 

[VAMiller]

Yup, that's worse. You could explain out-of-phase wiring as a simple mistake if you got caught, but deliberate sabotage is hard to hand-wave. Seems to me that it wouldn't be worth the risk. I wonder if the higher-ups in this business know that it's happening?

My wife has a successful retail store and her reputation means everything to her.