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Speaker Polarity Testing

Is it possible to correctly connect cables as marked between
speakers and amp yet still not have correct speaker polarity? Is it necessary to test polarity, and is it incorrect often?

I have read some places about reversing the wire connections
on one speaker and listening to see if sound is improved.
Is this safe? Has anyone tried this?

I would like to make sure this is safe and causes no damage before trying on my system.
megasam

Showing 1 response by drubin

drubin
3,285 posts
 
If you reverse the leads on just one speaker, you will be running your system out of PHASE (unless one of the speakers is wired differently from the other). This should be very noticeable to you as a lack of image specificity--for example, a vocalist who previously appeared in the center of your soundstange may now sound like he or she is standing outside of one of the speakers.

When J.D. talks above about some equipment reversing POLARITY, he is referring to the polarity of both channels. If you reverse the leads (plus to minus, minus to plus) on BOTH speakers (or at the amp), you reverse the polarity. Some people hear this difference, others do not. Achieving correct polarity in your system can get complicated because, as J.D. says, some components (mainly preamps) reverse the polarity, so you need to compensate for this elsewhere in the system, such as by reversing the leads at the speakers. More than this, however, conventional wisdom says that about half of recordings do not have correct polarity. This is why some preamps and DACs have polarity inversion switches. These switches are much more useful when they come with a remote control. Dan

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