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Ever have terminated speaker wires crossed/mislabeled from manufacturer?

Hi All,

So I recently came across a very weird scenario. One that I have never encountered before. I just put together a second, smaller HT system (5 channels). So I bought 5 XLR and 3 speaker cables all from SKW on Amazon. I got their high end cables. I have a few of the power cables on my subs and their stuff looks/feels/performs quite well. So I decided to go all in on speaker cables and IC's. I ran my Audyssey room correction through my Marantz AV8802A (purchased used on Ebay-very clean unit). But for some reason it kept saying my left front speaker had wires out of phase and had the red X showing on the speaker. I double checked and had red/red, black/black. So ran it again and same same. So I changed the speaker end (bananas all around) and put the black to red, vice versa. Ran calibration and no error...and as these cables are already terminated there's no way to determine for sure if indeed they put the wrong color on the wrong wire...

 

I have never ever even thought or considered that the Manufacturer could get this wrong, but I guess like everything else, mistakes can be made. But it really threw me for a loop and let's just say I will no longer buy SKW. Once that trust is broken, it's gone😯. I have started the return on Amazon and am sending the speaker cables back. I already ordered up the Blue Jeans Ten White Speaker Cable which even though terminated allows you to see the red and black wires so you know...

 

Very very disappointed in SKW, because I really liked their cables. They even provide screw on bananas and spades with all of their cables...

 

Anyone ever have this happen?

kingbr

Showing 2 responses by erik_squires

erik_squires
15,712 posts
 

@ellajeanelle -  Hmmm? It's very useful.  If the OP is concerned his speaker cables have 1 end swapped, just put the battery on one end of the cable and the speaker at the other. :)

 

@kingbr  Reversing ( + to - ) is usually safe, except in some cases when bi-wired speakers where the black cables are internally connected.  Otherwise, if not bi-wiring, it is perfectly safe to swap one end or the other.

The other case where things get wonky is with balanced amps when a user attempts to bridge the (-) terminals. 

So long as you have 1 pair of outputs going to 1 pair of speaker inputs you can swap either or and the most you'll suffer, as you've discovered, is poor bass and weird phase effects. :)

erik_squires
15,712 posts
 

You do need a continuity tester to know what’s happening for sure. One way to tell is to swap the cables with another speaker or input.

There’s a lot that can go wrong, speaker cables, XLR or even having a speaker with drivers reversed.

Another safe test, in case you want to try, using a 1.5V or 9V battery, hook up + to red and - to black. The convention (but not enforced) is that this should cause the woofer to move towards the listener. Test it on your two front speakers and make sure it goes the right way for both. Like I said, it’s convention, so possible you’ll find the rare manufacturer who doesn’t do this. The reason is multi-way speakers may invert one driver or another, but the usual habit is that the woofers are in-phase but smaller drivers may be inverted.

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