# Inverting speaker polarity.



## kroid7777 (Jun 10, 2009)

I read one time in a home audio forum that some older units would sound better if you inverted the polarity.

Nowww Im pretty new to the whole car audio business..although I do read up a lot on it and I installed my whole (modest) system by myself.

I have a set of pioneer tweeters in my dash (stock location)

and a set of coaxials in the back (pioneers too)

I just got my pioneer components though ...will be mounting those soon...

but anyways..

So I went ahead and tried it yesterday (at low volume) I switched both right and left speakers polarity (rear speakers) and I kinda likeee the way it sounds...

can i mess up anything by switching the polarity???...


----------



## TREETOP (Feb 11, 2009)

Nope, it's a common practice.


----------



## bradinar (Jul 20, 2009)

No. Revering the phase wont damage anything.


----------



## xaman74 (Nov 6, 2005)

Switch the polarity help you to find a correct acoustic phase..
The electric phase are the common + to +, - to - 
The acoustic phase only can obtein listening the results of changing the electric polairty of the drivers, in fact this metod are very used for the tweeters, mids and subs and can change alot of the final sound quality in your system.


----------



## kroid7777 (Jun 10, 2009)

xaman74 said:


> Switch the polarity help you to find a correct acoustic phase..
> The electric phase are the common + to +, - to -
> The acoustic phase only can obtein listening the results of changing the electric polairty of the drivers, in fact this metod are very used for the tweeters, mids and subs and can change alot of the final sound quality in your system.


Im not quite following what you are saying but it looks like its something meaningful and something I wouldnt want to miss.

I noticed you are from Mexico..y yo se español so si quieres me lo puedes explicar en español...

Lo que me dices es que solamente puedo notar el cambio en fase cuando invierto los polos?


----------



## bafukie (Nov 23, 2007)

It is always best to wired up the polarity correctly first... then only when u start tuning, u can switch the polarity to see which sounds better


----------



## gijoe (Mar 25, 2008)

kroid7777 said:


> Im not quite following what you are saying but it looks like its something meaningful and something I wouldnt want to miss.
> 
> I noticed you are from Mexico..y yo se español so si quieres me lo puedes explicar en español...
> 
> Lo que me dices es que solamente puedo notar el cambio en fase cuando invierto los polos?


What he's saying is there is a difference between electrical and acoustic phase. If you wire everything + to + and - to -, your electrical phase is correct. However, depending on how your speakers are positioned, this may cause a speaker to be out of phase acoustically. You're aiming to have everything in acoustic phase, and switching the +'s and -'s around may help you get there. Then again, it may mess things up worse.

Basically, it won't hurt anything in any way so swap them back and forth and see how everthing comes together the best.


----------



## xaman74 (Nov 6, 2005)

Hola Kroid
En efecto tal como dice gijoe.
La fase electrica es en aquella donde conectas positivos a positivos y negativos a negativos. El fabricante lo pone como punto de partida en las conexiones de tu sistema.
La fase acustica es aquella en donde tus drivers funcionan mejor, ya que es el perfecto acoplamiento acustico entre los dirvers. Este acoplamiento puede ser poniendo ambos tweeters con las fase electrica invertida (positivo hacia negativo)o solo uno o los dos mids,etc etc... en fin la conexión final solo puede ser lograda mediante prueba y error no hay ninguna regla o ley que diga que una bocina debe trabajar en fase o desfasada para sonar bien, con esto se logra un sonido mas natural y mejor integrado, yo en lo personal lo he notado mas cuando operas de manera activa tu sistema, ya que al pasar por diferentes puntos de curce asi como por slopes la fase acustica puede cambiar...de hecho yo logre subir el escenario de mi carro con solo invertir la fase acustica de mis midranges ubicados en kickpanels.


En un coche es bueno empezar con los tweeters y de ahi con los mids y al final los subs tus oidos te diran donde es la correcta fase acustica ya que notaras inmediatamente el cambio, el problema es que lleva tiempo y es engorroso conectar y desconectar algunos sets de bocinas tienen la opcion de cambiar la fase de los tweeters basados en esta premisa. Si puedes hacer la prueba te invito a que lo hagas.

Saludos!


----------



## zoomer (Aug 2, 2009)

Phase hmm
Several topics here.
First the topic of subwoofer, mid, tweets all correctly wired in phase so that they all move in the same direction. Normally if you connect all positive amp out to positive speaker in and all positive crossover out to positive speaker in you should be ok. 
Sometimes an amp is inverting.. in other words it makes a positive wave into a negative wave. This happens sometimes with subs. Thats why on most headunits you have a reverse setting for the sub. It will also help with time alliging of sub-mid at the crossover point. 
with simple 6db or 12 db crossovers, the tweeter signal is out of phase form the mid at the crossover point and the tweeter needs to be connected reverse polarity HOWEVER a crossover with + and - markings would already account for this. so always connect pos to pos. 

Now for what you have heard from hi fi audio: in the rarifed world of high end audio there is a notion of absolute phase: that the phase of the sound must be always properly followed thru the entire recording chain: from microphone to mic preamp.. mixer a/d converter recording medium... playback amp speakers etc. In other words.. if a kick drum pushes out.. then the speaker should also pushout. However... theorists dispute the claim of this absolute phase reference... Some purist claim to be able to hear the difference and thus your observation about reversing phase sounds better. 
As for me. i am not into that hi hi fi.. and if you spend $20K on a sound system you can do what you want!


----------



## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Absolute phase is INDEED important, think about what happens to a microphone element in plosives, you need this forward movement, plain and simple.

Amps rarely flip phase, the phase reversal on headunits it to compensate for inverted or rearward facing drivers. 

Conversely nearly ALL modern amps have one channel flipped to facilitate easy bridging, one speaker is LITERALLY wired backwards in stereo or 2 channel mono mode.


----------



## gijoe (Mar 25, 2008)

chad said:


> Conversely nearly ALL modern amps have one channel flipped to facilitate easy bridging, one speaker is LITERALLY wired backwards in stereo or 2 channel mono mode.


Interesting, I didn't know that. On a 4 channel, would that mean that 1-2 and 3-4 are usually out of phase electrically?


----------



## freemind (Sep 11, 2008)

kroid7777 said:


> I read one time in a home audio forum that some older units would sound better if you inverted the polarity.
> 
> Nowww Im pretty new to the whole car audio business..although I do read up a lot on it and I installed my whole (modest) system by myself.
> 
> ...


Your nipples will point inwards!


----------



## Rebelde (Oct 5, 2009)

So if I put subwoofers facing backwards (to the rear of the car) Then the sound should be better because it will be in sync with the mids?


----------



## kroid7777 (Jun 10, 2009)

xaman74 said:


> Hola Kroid
> En efecto tal como dice gijoe.
> La fase electrica es en aquella donde conectas positivos a positivos y negativos a negativos. El fabricante lo pone como punto de partida en las conexiones de tu sistema.
> La fase acustica es aquella en donde tus drivers funcionan mejor, ya que es el perfecto acoplamiento acustico entre los dirvers. Este acoplamiento puede ser poniendo ambos tweeters con las fase electrica invertida (positivo hacia negativo)o solo uno o los dos mids,etc etc... en fin la conexión final solo puede ser lograda mediante prueba y error no hay ninguna regla o ley que diga que una bocina debe trabajar en fase o desfasada para sonar bien, con esto se logra un sonido mas natural y mejor integrado, yo en lo personal lo he notado mas cuando operas de manera activa tu sistema, ya que al pasar por diferentes puntos de curce asi como por slopes la fase acustica puede cambiar...de hecho yo logre subir el escenario de mi carro con solo invertir la fase acustica de mis midranges ubicados en kickpanels.
> ...



Sale, muchas gracias por la explicacion


----------



## kroid7777 (Jun 10, 2009)

freemind said:


> Your nipples will point inwards!


lol...what if its cold?


----------



## kroid7777 (Jun 10, 2009)

chad said:


> Absolute phase is INDEED important, think about what happens to a microphone element in plosives, you need this forward movement, plain and simple.
> 
> Amps rarely flip phase, the phase reversal on headunits it to compensate for inverted or rearward facing drivers.
> 
> Conversely nearly ALL modern amps have one channel flipped to facilitate easy bridging, one speaker is LITERALLY wired backwards in stereo or 2 channel mono mode.


So are u sayin theres no point in reversing them?


----------



## gijoe (Mar 25, 2008)

kroid7777 said:


> So are u sayin theres no point in reversing them?


No, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that acoustic phase is different and depending on the install, and how the speakers are situated you may or may not need to flip the phase.

You want the speakers to be acoustically in phase which sometimes required them to be wired out of phase.


----------



## kroid7777 (Jun 10, 2009)

gijoe said:


> No, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that acoustic phase is different and depending on the install, and how the speakers are situated you may or may not need to flip the phase.
> 
> You want the speakers to be acoustically in phase which sometimes required them to be wired out of phase.


Thanks man.Im a slow learner.


----------



## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

gijoe said:


> Interesting, I didn't know that. On a 4 channel, would that mean that 1-2 and 3-4 are usually out of phase electrically?


One of the pair is actually reversed, so probably 2 and 4 are inverted and labeled electrically backwards. Remember when you bridge an amp you are grabbing 2 electrically active outputs and no ground, but yet when you wire it on your amp you wire to a pos and a neg label wise, you are actually grabbing 2 positives. one is inverted in phase 180 degrees.


See how the speaker outputs are Red, Black, Black, Red?










Now see how the right channels positive is electrically signal ground and the negative speaker output is driven?










This is why when testing an amplifier on a scope you want to ALWAYS observe this or you will be driving your home's safety ground with the scope drain on Ch 2 and actually measuring signal ground if you hook it up in a manner that "appears correct."


Here's another way I explained it once......



chad said:


> This goddamn forum is not allowing me to quote today so i gotta do it old-skool
> 
> STI GTO Sed:
> I didn't pay much attention to his instructions, as I don't have one infront of me yet, but to bridge you hook it up like most car amps right? For example: L+ and R-, or ch1+ and ch2-
> ...


----------

