Out of Phase Speaker

troyst123

I am in the process of setting up a home theater system, which consists of RTi speakers and a Pioneer Elite VSK21-TXH avr. When I have the receiver perform the auto-calibrate function, it reports that the right front (RTi12) speaker is out of phase. I've checked and the wiring between the receiver and the speaker is correct and the connections are clean.

I will (later) reverse the connections at the speaker to see if the auto-cal function will show it is in phase. I suspect the speaker wiring may be reversed, and that will help to confirm.

However, one thing puzzled me that I was hoping to get some feedback on, as well as the problem in general. While I had things pulled out of place after having reconnected all the wiring, I ran the auto-cal function and it showed the speaker didn't have a phase problem. Then I put everything back into their proper place, which meant the front right speaker was next to a sub and a couple of ac cables, re-ran the auto-cal and it again showed the speaker out of phase. Is it possible that being close to the sub or ac cables are causing an interference that is picked up as an out of phase speaker? It may have been a fluke that the speaker showed good at all; I have run the test quite a few times and it consistently showed out of phase.

Jed Leland

Hello,
The problem could be the relationship between the right speaker and the sub-woofer. The auto-calibration could be seeing a bass cancellation and reading this as "out-of-phase" between the right and left speaker. Try turning off the sub-woofer and doing the test again.
Regards, Ken

thsmith

Ignore it, it happens and if you checked you cabling and no issue just ignore.

Jed Leland

Hello,
With all due respect, I don't believe ignoring it is a good idea. The auto-calibration system is measuring something. There is a dip in the frequency response or a difference between the right and left channel that is triggering the "out-of-phase" condition.
If the sub-woofer has a polarity reversal selector that could be helpful in getting the source of the problem corrected. Or, if the sub-woofer were turned off and the system showed everything fine, then you would know to reposition the sub-woofer. But, I would find the root cause. From the receiver's point of view there's something happening in the right channel that isn't happening in the left.
Cheers, Ken

PSOVLSK

Jed Leland wrote: »

Hello,
The problem could be the relationship between the right speaker and the sub-woofer. The auto-calibration could be seeing a bass cancellation and reading this as "out-of-phase" between the right and left speaker. Try turning off the sub-woofer and doing the test again.Regards, Ken

Would be interested to see if this makes a difference.

I could be mistaken, but it seems like on my Avia set-up disc it states that "if the speaker shows to be out of phase, check your connections; if connections are correct, don't worry about it." Obviously paraphrasing.

If you can get the problem corrected pretty easily, great. If not, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

esowden

I've known of instances when the sub would cause a cancellation of lower frequencies. In my case it was frequencies below 30hz.

troyst123

Hey guys,

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. I was able to spend a little time with this issue tonight and it appears it is from the wiring in the right speaker.

I ran the auto cal with the sub-woofer disconnected completely and it again showed the right speaker out of phase. Then reconnected the sub and also reversed the wiring connections at the right speaker and the auto-cal showed everything good at that point. Time for an exhange rather then dig into it myself.

Thanks again!

dorokusai

I also don't believe that "it happens" but perhaps I haven't seen every problem. I believe your troubleshooting procedure to be solid and pretty easy to isolate step by step....and as I type this, it appears you did just that.

Good work Troy.

troyst123

Doro, thanks.

The isolation is clear enough. Actually that was the easy part! Pulling out the stand a couple of times and checking and redoing the connections was the hard part!

Have a good one.

troyst123

Something didn't sit right and I kept digging on this issue, which I thought I'd share. It seems that the problem is probably really due to bad room geometry for HT when using the auto-calibrate function.

I moved the auto-cal microphone off-center and closer to the front right speaker, which tested good. I kept playing with the mic positioning and the results varied.

My rear wall is only a partial wall that is along/under a stairway, with half of the remaining wall location directly across from the right front speaker being open (a opening into another room). An actual wall that directly faces the right front speaker is around 10-12 feet farther than the partial wall (which does directly face the left front speaker).

So should you get an out-of-phase report from the auto-cal setup, of course you want to confirm connections and such, but also play with the mic position to see how it changes and consider room geometry in addition to the more physical/component items.

If it appears to be a geometry issue you can either ignore the report and continue with the auto-cal setup (mine stopped with the out-of-phase report to allow for checking connections) and let the receiver try to compensate for the room/phase, set it up manually, or kind of trick receiver by placing something in the direct speaker path at a certain location, even standing at the wall opening in my case to provide something for wave reflection....perhaps those should be the progression steps - tweak it as needed.