No ones perfect, heck I would settle for halfway decent

WastelandWand'r

Sometime in recent past I moved everything away from the wall and cleaned behind the system. I restrung everything in an effort to clean up the rats nest I call cable management. Hooked it up, walked away and went on vacation. Leaving the house to the care of the house sitter who was left with detailed instructions on how things work and my phone number in case they ran into trouble using the system.

I got back, settled in and started listening to music. Immediately I heard something wrong. I kept sliding to the left in pursuit of the 'sweet spot'. I walked around with an SPL Meter and determined that the left channel was 'quieter'. At least I thought that it was. I asked my wife to come listen, sat her down in the special spot and she said,
'It sounds like the left channel blows donkeys.' With that technical confirmation, I knew something was wrong. Hell I had even scheduled myself for a hearing test as I fly a lot and thought I had screwed up my left ear!!!

I had previously rebuilt the crossovers with Gimpod's boards and new caps and resistors, removed the poly and was very happy with the sound of them. Now I knew in my heart that I had smoked something listening to Lady Gaga too loud and chose today to tear everything apart. I examined the solder joints on the crossovers, wiggling each one and could not for the life of me find anything loose or suspect. Since the drivers were out I removed the mortite and replaced it with foam tape of appropriate size and buttoned them all back up.

I worked the heavy b***ards back into position, checked them for proper alignment, and fired them up. I sat on the couch and stared in hapless confusion as I heard sound only coming from the tweeters of the left channel. I pressed my head to the mid drivers and heard crickets. WTF, over?!!?

I turned everything off and tore it all down again. Rechecked all connections at the drivers, those were good. Looked at the crossover and discovered that I had switched the driver connections on the crossover. Putting them back in the proper place, I ensured I had noise from them and put them all back together again. Settled in, pressed play and started giving serious thoughts to throwing them out the window as they still sounded like ****.

At this point I began to cry. I gave up drinking 11 years ago so I couldn't blame this on drunken tinkering. I was completely confused and started to plan a proper disposal for them. I finally settled on a bonfire, a big bonfire.

Then the light bulb went on, (a very dim one mind you) and I crawled behind the system and saw that I had somehow ran the right channel to the left and the left to the right when I restrung everything. I ran and plopped on the couch and fired it up.

THAT'S HOW ITS SUPPOSED TO SOUND!!!!!! What a blessing proper sound is.

So if you stayed with me on this rambling story, take this with you. The devil is in the details and the answer is usually trying to show itself to you if you don't try and make things too complicated.

Gotta get back to listening.
Not being considered for MENSA,
Nathan

nooshinjohn

I have NEVER made any wiring mistakes in my rig...:rolleyes: :redface: :cheesygrin:

Glad you got everything sorted out my friend. Happy listening!

tonyb

If I had a nickel for everytime I did stupid mistakes.....glad you got it worked out. Sometimes the most obvious solutions elude us.

Toolfan66

I forgot a jumper in my crossovers and it drove me nuts for about an hour..

11tsteve

i purchased mt HCA 1200 II around the same time i re-gasketed my 11T's, and also replaced some really bad speaker cable with not quite as cheap Monster cable. i installed the Armacell and reinstalled the drivers, ran the new cables, put everything back in its place then fired it up to enjoy the benefits of my newly sealed speakers.
lo and behold, the left channel seemed dim and lifeless! i did much the same... tore the left speaker apart, checked wires, switched out tweets... switched back to the old speaker cables...
oh, i'd say a couple of hours chasing my tail convinced my newness to all of this had secretly undermined me.... and then the light bulb went on.
the Parasound has its channel volume controls on the back near the binding posts, and sure enough i must have brushed the left channel hooking up the new cables.... it never felt so good to be so dumb.:redface:

Shike

I can honestly say I'm terrified whenever I get behind my rig . . . wires, everywhere there's wires. No way in heck am I fixing my rats nest. Does it work? Yep. Don't touch it.

Stupid mistakes for me? Leaving a digital parametric EQ on when playing files with a curve meant for my headphones. Couldn't figure out what happened, though my amp was dying. Thankfully figured out before I started ripping out components though.

WastelandWand'r

My goal in life, well one of them, is when I leave this beautiful city by the bay is that I finally have a place that I can set up the system and not have to lay on my side on the floor while hooking things up.
Glad to hear that I am not alone in audio mishaps.
Nathan

zingo

Congrats on the easy, but mind-numbing fix!

Willow

Lady gaga?......really? TMI

gimpod

WastelandWand'r wrote: »

Then the light bulb went on, (a very dim one mind you) and I crawled behind the system and saw that I had somehow ran the right channel to the left and the left to the right when I restrung everything. I ran and plopped on the couch and fired it up.

LOL, Now this is classic gimpod! and it's nice to know I'm not the only one. I did almost the same thing when we put my 1C's back together, It was on a Sunday and we were watching the Seaturkey's getting there arse's kicked and ended up wiring the right channel just like the left. After pulling and rechecking the crossover's a have a dozen times it finely dawned on me to check the internal wiring. Unfortunately because I did all the upgrades and mods all at the same time I couldn't fall back on the number one rule when diagnosing a problem and I quote.

When diagnosing a problem remember 80-90% of all problems can be traced back to the last thing that was done.

Note: This rule applies to just about everything when diagnosing a problem and should be the first thing you do.

Anywho, Glad you got it sorted out.

obieone

I may have a rats nest, but everything back there, is LABELED!!! If its clear spkr wire, I mark one strand w/ blk magic marker, and the other with red. Then I assign a number code to correlate to position: 1= LF, 2=CC, 3= RF, 4=RR, 5=LR. If I don't have a label maker, I use hash marks; /, //, /// etc.