# How to check speaker phase



## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

I need to check the phase of my speakers with a multimeter or by whichever way possible. Problem is that they are behind the door panel and i dont want to remove that. I have the other terminals/crossover at my disposal under seat of car where i can reach easily. How do i go about testing the speakers phase from the wire terminals linked to the speaker? Thank you replies really appreciated


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## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

Can you see how the speaker moves though the grille? If so, you can touch the wires with an AA 1,5V battery and the cone will move accordingly. Connect the positive side of the battery to the + side of the wiring (likewise for the negative); if the cone moves outwards, it's in phase. If it moves inwards, it's out of phase.


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

n_olympios said:


> Can you see how the speaker moves though the grille? If so, you can touch the wires with an AA 1,5V battery and the cone will move accordingly. Connect the positive side of the battery to the + side of the wiring (likewise for the negative); if the cone moves outwards, it's in phase. If it moves inwards, it's out of phase.


Hi there i CANNOT see the speaker through the grill


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## nigeDLS (Nov 5, 2011)

Got an i phone? You can download a free app to check phase. You will need a polarity pulse disc as well, but you should be able to download something.

Speaker Pop for iPhone - Free iPhone software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com


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## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

In that case, set the multimeter to show DC Voltage and touch the wiring with its terminals along with the battery (as stated above). If a negative sign is shown on the screen, then the phase is reversed. If not, you're good to go. This only works with a digital multimeter though.

Edit: what kind of grille is it anyway, that doesn't allow the speaker to be seen? That can't be good for the sound.


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## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

nigeDLS said:


> Got an i phone? You can download a free app to check phase. You will need a polarity pulse disc as well, but you should be able to download something.
> 
> Speaker Pop for iPhone - Free iPhone software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com


Nige, what are you doing up this early on a Sunday? Get back to bed.


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## nigeDLS (Nov 5, 2011)

I've spent the last two weeks in Thailand so my sleep patterns are a bit off! :blush:


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

nigeDLS said:


> Got an i phone? You can download a free app to check phase. You will need a polarity pulse disc as well, but you should be able to download something.
> 
> Speaker Pop for iPhone - Free iPhone software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com


Haha you boys should get serious and stop clowning on my thread  thanks alot for the advice nigel i have found the app in the app store but where on earth do i get to download the polarity pulse disc and how accurate is this iphone method. I dont want to waste $4.99 from the app store and miss the target. Would rather dedicate that $ towards getting a multimeter


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

ak2366,

use a disc and your ears . . .

AutoSound has one where she says: my voice is out-of-phase . . . my voice is in phase.

I'll cost more than $4.99 though


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## azngotskills (Feb 24, 2006)

its doesnt matter, it is what sounds best and the phase relative to other speakers in your system....if you want a definative answer you can use the DMM method n_olympios outlined


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## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

I wrote about the difference between absolute and relative phase in my earlier post but then thought it's not necessary so deleted it. 

ak2366, although there are many phase check audio files readily available either free or for purchase, try this one (right click and save as); it's part of the "TDK's Ultimate Guide To Great Sound" disk and ought to do the job. 

Took me all 3 minutes to find the link.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

Guys, there's a difference between mechanical and acoustical phase. It seems the majority of you are discussing mechanical phase.


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## Fricasseekid (Apr 19, 2011)

X2

Hey punk, is there a better way to check for acoustical phase than just switching speaker wires until you find what "sounds best" to you?


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## nigeDLS (Nov 5, 2011)

I would always start with everything in mechanical phase so you know where you are.

There is a free JL Audio i phone app, which has a phase checker included.


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

Listen guys thanks for all the advice. I have decided to buy the speaker pop app , since the free JL audio app doesnt come with tweeter function but the former does. However before i burn my 5 bucks on itunes i need to get to download the speaker pop file problem is when i try to download from studiosixdigital it doesnt allow me

http://www.studiosixdigital.com/downloads-2/speaker_pop_signal_file_--_.aiff

please help out with this, i need to make sure i have the testing file ready with me before i burn money and buy the app. Thanks guys


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## acidbass303 (Dec 3, 2010)

Dont worry about that file, i have that file in wav, mp3 and aiff format, will upload them somewhere and share the link.


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

acidbass303 said:


> Dont worry about that file, i have that file in wav, mp3 and aiff format, will upload them somewhere and share the link.


Thank you  , patiently waiting for you to upload an post the link on my thread!  ... thank you


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## minbari (Mar 3, 2011)

n_olympios said:


> In that case, set the multimeter to show DC Voltage and touch the wiring with its terminals along with the battery (as stated above). If a negative sign is shown on the screen, then the phase is reversed. If not, you're good to go. This only works with a digital multimeter though.
> 
> Edit: what kind of grille is it anyway, that doesn't allow the speaker to be seen? That can't be good for the sound.


what if you dont know if the speaker has the positive on the postive and neg on neg? this is not a good way to tell. if you cant see the speaker, and you dont have some analyzing tools, you are not going to be able to tell.


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## anthonyst06 (Dec 12, 2011)

very helpful


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## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

ak2366 said:


> Thank you  , patiently waiting for you to upload an post the link on my thread!  ... thank you


I beat him to it (right click and save as). 



minbari said:


> what if you dont know if the speaker has the positive on the postive and neg on neg? this is not a good way to tell. if you cant see the speaker, and you dont have some analyzing tools, you are not going to be able to tell.


Well then I guess you're FUBARed. 

Seriously, in that case you can only get it right by ear (relative phase only).

Also, now that I think of it, this thread should be named "How to check speaker polarity".


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## The A Train (Jun 26, 2007)

Also, phase can be adjusted in degrees. It is hardly never out of phase 180 degrees, which can be solved by switching speaker wires.


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## acidbass303 (Dec 3, 2010)

n_olympios said:


> I beat him to it (right click and save as).


Thanks


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

n_olympios said:


> I beat him to it (right click and save as).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks ALOT!  . Its in AIFF format dont you have in AAC?. my pioneer head unit cant play anything outside of AAC, WMA , MP3


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## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

Come on, man, seriously? There must be thousands of pc apps out there for format conversions. 

Next thing you'll be asking for someone to come and tune your car for you. Don't get any funny ideas, I'm too far away.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

Fricasseekid said:


> X2
> 
> Hey punk, is there a better way to check for acoustical phase than just switching speaker wires until you find what "sounds best" to you?


http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...pc-based-measurement-setup.html?highlight=mls

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...speaker-measurement-system.html?highlight=mls


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

n_olympios said:


> Come on, man, seriously? There must be thousands of pc apps out there for format conversions.
> 
> Next thing you'll be asking for someone to come and tune your car for you. Don't get any funny ideas, I'm too far away.


 yeah you are far away but if the price i offer you is right  , I am sure you would budge  ..you are cheeky indeed


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## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

Sometimes. 

To show you how good I am though, here's how you do it (I assume you've got iTunes). 

How to Convert AIFF to MP3 with iTunes - YouTube


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## Fricasseekid (Apr 19, 2011)

bikinpunk said:


> http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...pc-based-measurement-setup.html?highlight=mls
> 
> http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...speaker-measurement-system.html?highlight=mls


Don't go thinking I was being lazy and all. I didn't ask for mine own benefit. But thankyou for the response.


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## zoomer (Aug 2, 2009)

how about taping a keenex to the grill and powering with a 6 or 9v battery across your leads...if the kleenex puffs out you got it wired in phase..


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## The Tube Doctor (Nov 24, 2009)

Last time I was in Beijing, I picked up a hand-held phase tester, that came with a test disc
(polarity pulses, etc...) for about 50 RMB. ($8.00 USD) 
Works like a charm.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

zoomer said:


> how about taping a keenex to the grill and powering with a 6 or 9v battery across your leads...if the kleenex puffs out you got it wired in phase..


mechanical phase, sure. 

but, again, this really doesn't help you overall. in audio, we need to know what the relative phase is. not absolute. Not unless you're wiring multiple drivers and knowing polarity is key to keeping the amp from dying.


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Sometimes we're too busy talking, to listen. Erin mentioned mechanical vs acoustic phase, at least twice in the thread, yet the conversation centres around mechanical phase.

Mechanical Phase : Getting all the cones to move in and out, simultaneously. Worthless in a car because arrival times would be different.

Acoustic Phase : Getting the drivers to move sequentially so that you get same arrival time from all drivers. Hence furthest driver moves first and the nearest last. Done with time alignment.


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## antikryst (Feb 26, 2011)

sqnut said:


> Sometimes we're too busy talking, to listen. Erin mentioned mechanical vs acoustic phase, at least twice in the thread, yet the conversation centres around mechanical phase.
> 
> Mechanical Phase : Getting all the cones to move in and out, simultaneously. Worthless in a car because arrival times would be different.
> 
> Acoustic Phase : Getting the drivers to move sequentially so that you get same arrival time from all drivers. Hence furthest driver moves first and the nearest last. Done with time alignment.


just a question... if you get the speakers to play in acoustical phase by wiring something out of mechanical phase in relation to the drivers side... would it be the same from the passenger side? in short... would improvements be heard from both front seats?


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

antikryst said:


> just a question... if you get the speakers to play in acoustical phase by wiring something out of mechanical phase in relation to the drivers side... would it be the same from the passenger side? in short... would improvements be heard from both front seats?


No, because the distance to the same driver would vary from drivers seat and passengers seat.


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## masswork (Feb 23, 2009)

sqnut said:


> Sometimes we're too busy talking, to listen. Erin mentioned mechanical vs acoustic phase, at least twice in the thread, yet the conversation centres around mechanical phase.
> 
> Mechanical Phase : Getting all the cones to move in and out, simultaneously. Worthless in a car because arrival times would be different.
> 
> Acoustic Phase : Getting the drivers to move sequentially so that you get same arrival time from all drivers. Hence furthest driver moves first and the nearest last. Done with time alignment.


If we're going to use perfect time alignment then the polarity must be correct too. 
(Perfect means precisely aligned impulse response between drivers)


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Correct. To get in acoustic phase you have to start with drivers that are in mechanical phase. My post was more about looking beyond mechanical phase. I think that's where Erin was coming from as well.


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

Guys i have downloaded the speaker pop app and used the suggested sound. What i realized was that most of my drivers and tweeters were OUT OF PHASE OMG!... however when i was about to correct this i realized i have a major PROBLEM. I use Focal KRX2 crossovers and i DO NOT understand the wiring i loosened the wires and messed everything up. There are 6 terminals. I dont know which terminal is supposed to take in the signal from the amp and what terminal sends out Juice to my 6.5 inch driver, and what terminal sends out signals to my tweeter. please is there a logic to this?. Anyone who is using focal KRX2 as well kindly contribute. Thanks


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## n_olympios (Oct 23, 2008)

Don't you have its cover? There should be markings on it for each screw. Anyway:










From left to right you have

Input negative -
Input positive +
Woofer negative -
Woofer positive +
Tweeter negative -
Tweeter positive +


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

n_olympios said:


> Don't you have its cover? There should be markings on it for each screw. Anyway:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks!!


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

*Acoustic phase*



> All drivers are actually bandpass devices (that is, they roll off at some lower and upper frequencies). A very good approximation of the phase response for the driver may be obtained via the Hilbert transform using the passband portion and some portion of the upper and lower rolloffs of the response. The resulting phase shift is the minimum amount of phase shift possible for that driver. If there were no shift, the minimum phase graph would be a straight line. As it is, the phase shift is a function of frequency alone and is relatively constant in time, yielding a shift in degrees according to the frequency. The higher the frequency, the more shift per unit time, due to the fact that there are more cycles per unit time as frequency increases.





> Another one is the output from a crossover verses the input to it.





> An example in audio is driver SPL magnitude verses the electrical input signal (acoustic phase). Another one is the relationship between two SPL source outputs (e.g. woofer/tweeter) measured at a particular point in space, which is actually a comparison of the difference between the acoustic phases of the drivers relative to the input. This concept is important, because this phase relationship will usually change as the measurement point is changed.


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

Oliver said:


> *Acoustic phase*


Huh ???? can you please speak in plain and simple english and NOT in STILTED RHETORIC... i have absolutely no idea what you mean, you sound so COMPLICATED!...LOL


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

You are looking for polarity not phase, polarity is either 180 degrees out or not, if a speaker is ONE DEGREE OFF in "phase" then it's out of phase.


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

nigeDLS said:


> Got an i phone? You can download a free app to check phase. You will need a polarity pulse disc as well, but you should be able to download something.
> 
> Speaker Pop for iPhone - Free iPhone software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com


If you use this, remember, that with a 12dB/oct crossover, you actually WANT the tweeters flipped in polarity.


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## ak2366 (Dec 27, 2010)

Yes indeed its POLARITY i seek


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