L600 Polarity Issue

Emlyn

Good questions and good research! Welcome to the forum.

pitdogg2

So my question is, Does the L600 manual mention anywhere the proper way to hook up the speakers?
Is it proper to hook them up with positive to negative or positive to positive?
I get the fact that some XO's invert phase USUALLY that is corrected by wiring the drivers differently I thought. You still hooked up the speaker cables to the correct positive, negative binding post's the difference was the postive wire in the cabinet would be hooked to the negative speaker spade. At least that was the way the tweeter was on the RTA12 speaker since it was inverted in the XO.

AgentTJ

I didnt see any mention of this in the manual which made it all the more confusing. I have them hooked up in reverse currently to be in phase with the other speakers/subs I have.

Emlyn

If the whole system sounds best to you that way I don't see an issue with running it that way for home theater. But do the main speakers sound better, worse, or no different if you just use the main speakers by themselves for music connected up that way? In most cases a manufacturer recommends connecting the speakers normally regardless of what an auto configuration microphone picks up. I'm not sure that's always the best or only advice with multiple pairs of speakers and subwoofers and trying to get them to sound the best when all working together. Only the owner can figure out what works best in their room.

txcoastal1

Reminds me of Lone Star Audio Fest...

Every once in awhile there would be a victim. Russ or I would reverse the phase on one of someone's speakers while they were out of the room.

SeleniumFalcon

I asked Scott Orth (Polk speaker engineer) for information:

"Hi Ken,

Audyssey has trouble with many speakers regarding polarity. When I run into this problem, I check the connections to make sure everything is correct, then tell Audyssey to continue.

When checking the polarity of the individual drivers, the tweeter and mid should be in positive polarity and the woofers in negative polarity. This is required due to the crossover topology between the mid and woofer and is normal for many loudspeaker designs.

The customer can of course reverse the polarity of the input if he wants the woofers in positive polarity and the mid and tweeter in negative polarity. As far as what’s is the best way, it depends on the rest of the system. Are there other speakers? Are they using a sub? Are they high passing the L600? And so on. Can’t discuss all of the possible permutations here. I would just leave them as is. If they are using Audyssey, it will work out the best relationship between the L600s and the rest of the system.

Scott"

stangman67

Very informative and not surprising. Love a good technical answer from a Pro!

AgentTJ

Very helpful info. I think the point of the story here is I need to ditch my off brand surrounds and center and having them all in phase is a lot easier haha.

mhardy6647

Big shout-out to @SeleniumFalcon for doing the right thing and pulling down a bunch of cogent (and accurate) information.

... oh, and let's just pretend I never responded to this thread earlier, OK?

Emlyn

AgentTJ wrote: »

Very helpful info. I think the point of the story here is I need to ditch my off brand surrounds and center and having them all in phase is a lot easier haha.

Having five L600s would be cool.

heiney9

NM, I re-read Scott's answer from Ken and the bulb went off....

H9