I have a DeHavilland Ultraverve 3 preamp that inverts polarity. my problem is my speaker cables, the negative cable is designed for negative terminal connection as is the positive cable is designed for positive terminal connection, so reversing the speaker cables defeats the design of the speaker cables.
preamp manufacturers say both speakers, if you only do one then the speakers are out of phase. that is one woofer goes out while the other goes in thus canceling the bass out.
I have a tube preamp that inverts polarity (for some reason it is designed that way). I reversed the speaker connection on one of the speakers, and it sounded better to me.
Playing a test record confirmed my suspicion.
The catch is: not all of my records sound better with the speaker wires reversed on one speaker. I would say 80% of my records sound fine either way (I can't hear a difference), but some (those with good sound staging) have improved "imaging" (if I am using that term correctly). And a few "image" better the other way.
This makes no sense to me. Is "phase inversion" the same as "polarity inversion"? And why do some recordings seem to have it backwards?
And why would anyone want to change both speakers?
Please Kaitty, don't tell the various venues who keep hiring me for my live sound mixing/production skills...I wish I had a closet full of dusty magic rocks and various snake oil sonic remedies so I could enjoy being a failed imaginary "Industry Insider." THEN I'd get some respect!
"...except to check if "maybe" something is out of phase,.."
I don't think your ears will be able to tell the difference unless you have a "phase correct" reference you can compare with. I listen to a lot of the same music albums on both LPs and CDs and I occasional run into a CD/LP where I can easily\y tell the difference but it is more like the channels are reversed because both media sound good and nothing seems to be missing.
I listen to "redbook" CDs frequently and although my DAC has a polarity switch, I rarely use it except to check if "maybe" something is out of phase, but generally nothing is and they sound great. Thanks Kaitty, a two year trade school education would have been great!
Having the system in reverse Polarity can be a blessing if you play CDs since at least half of all CDs are in reverse Polarity, at least according to the Polarity Pundit, maybe a lot more than 50%. There are no standards for Polarity.
P.S. to my previous post: In advocating a swap of + and - at the speaker terminals I'm assuming that the speakers are entirely passive, i.e., that they do not contain an amplifier themselves. Let us know if that is not the case.
Unbalanced interconnects should absolutely not be re-wired to invert polarity. If that were done the signal provided by the sending component would be connected to the circuit ground of the receiving component, and the circuit ground of the sending component would be connected to the signal input of the receiving component. In addition to not working properly that could conceivably even result in damage to the sending component in some cases.
If the interface is balanced in both of the interconnected components, interchanging the connections to pins 2 and 3 of the XLR connector at one end of the cable would do the trick.
HOWEVER, I agree with Stringreen, Stereo5, and Lowrider that all you need to do is to interchange the + and - connections to the speaker terminals, on both speakers. The currents going into and out of the + and - speaker terminals are identical (they have no place else to go!), and so the cable wouldn’t know the difference.
It seems remotely conceivable to me that interchanging wire types between + and - at the amp end might make a slight difference in some circumstances, for example by affecting the characteristics of RFI the cable might pick up and introduce into the feedback loop of the amplifier, if the amp has a feedback loop. But even that seems far-fetched, and in any event I can’t envision a means by which interchanging + and - at the speaker end would affect the behavior of the cables, the speakers, or the amplifier.
The design of the positive and negative leads on your Cerious cables has nothing to do with your speaker terminals. The speakers don’t care. Simply reverse positive and neg. I also have a phase inverting preamp.
At the speaker binding posts, attach + cable to - speaker post. And - cable to + speaker. Do this for both speakers.
the negative cable has little different design than the positive cable, they are both designed to be connected to the negative or positive terminal. the connections are both standard just the internal design of each leg is different. these cerious technologies speaker cables, here is a better description from a review.
Grost chose to construct the negative/ground cable from a
mix of conductive composites and wire. The positive lead according to
the literature, on the other hand, employs hundreds of stands of
microfiber saturated in proprietary liquid ceramic.
It certainly does not defeat the design of your speaker cables. Just reverse on BOTH speakers. I had 4 tube preamps which inverted polarity and never had a problem with the speaker cables.
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