2. tech-talk
  3. 1122855422

Reversing Polarity -- Voodoo or Easy Tweak?

In a recent thread I noticed a comment about reversing polarity of speaker wires on both speakers which sparked one of my earliest audiophile memories.

On the liner or cover notes of Dave Grusin: Discovered Again on direct to disc vinyl, circa 1977, it too recommended reversing the polarity on BOTH speakers, for best sound.

Although my first system was a 25 WPC Technics receiver with Infinity Qa's and lousy speaker wire, I still remember getting very enthusiastic about reversing the polarity and wondering if it did anything.

Can anyone explain this and/or recommend if this is even worth the experiment?
cwlondon

Showing 1 response by gregm

gregm
3,411 posts
 
Herman notes:
I haven't conducted any experiments to confirm this hypothesis
Someone else has -- and I tried desperately & unsuccessfully to find the ref. Apparently you WILL notice a discrepancy. This, (afa I remember) is variably termed as "slight loss of detail" or "microdynamics", etc. This "discrepancy" was particularly obvious when the same musical passage was played with fundamental & 2nd & 4th harmonic shifted into the pass band. ANyway, if I find the ref, I post it.
More to discover