I work at circuit city and my install guys have a polarity checker to find out what a car has. My buddy has a 95 full size truck and they found out that his speakers in taht car are reverse polarity and they said that tested other gms and this is true. anybody else run into this. The reversed the polarity to his aftermarket speakers and the system cleaned up and sounded a lot better. any comments?

 

Your kidding right??? I don't know about at your store, but shop I'm an installer at have to clean up alot of Circuit City installs. And their not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It sounds like that's the same case in this situation. First of all, all voltage going to all speakers is AC. That stands for alternating current. That means your possitive on your speaker wire will be possitive then it will be negitive and change back and forth. The same thing happens on the negitive speaker wire. Off the speaker wire going to your speaker if you have the possitive side going to the possitive on the speaker and the negitive wire going to negitive side on the speaker, then when the speaker pushes out then the polarity is correct. When the speaker pulls in then the polarity is reversed. It don't matter what kind of vehicle or speaker, that's always the case. The only thing to do with reverse polarity that will differ from vehicle to vehicle is door locks.

The part you said about switching polarity and it sounded better is that they probably had the speakers out of phase to begin with. What I mean about that is that if you have the left speaker wire positive on the positive terminal of the speaker and the negitive wire on the negitive terminal of the speaker. And on the right speaker if you have the positive wire on the negitive terminal of the speaker and the negitive wire on the positive terminal of the speaker. Then in this case when one speaker is pushing out then one speaker is pulling in and the soundwaves cancel each other out. The speaker still will play but it don't have the performance then it normally would. It will be missing alot of the lower bass and mid bass. Then all you got to do is switch one of the speaker wires like you said that they did and it sounds alot better because the soundwaves are working together instead of canceling each other out.

I might have got a little too in depth on this. Every stereo and every amp's output is AC (alternating current). The power wire going to your radio or amp will be DC (direct current). If I confused you with all this then I didn't mean to. My point is just because they are a "professional car audio" shop or installation don't really mean they know what they're doing. I've had to clean up so many trashy installs and screw ups that has done by "professionals", including alot from Circuit City.

 

I think you have polarity and absolute phase confused. Absolute phase means that on the positive going portion of the signal the speaker cone should be moving outward compressing the air in front of the cone. If the cone moves inward on the positive portion of the signal then you do not have absolute phase. That being said, there is no way to know whether you have your stereo connected in absolute phase. There's no way of knowing whether or not the microphones used durring the recording session were connected with absolute phase. And even if they were, the associated recording electronics may or may not have been manufactured with absolute phase. There are some, "golden eared" audiophiles for example, that claim to be able to hear absolute phase. The best you can do is connect all your speakers in phase with one another and listen to them. Then reverse the connection on all of the speakers and listen again to see if you have a preference. I can't hear any difference myself.

 

Shawnster no need to be rude.... kinda a long gerneralization on all circuit citys, i know guys that probably could run circles around you.... In my opinion Circuit city has the best installers compared to best buy and good guys, tweeter ect..

 

I didn't really mean to be "rude". And I wasn't talking about "ALL" circuit city's. All the installs coming out of the circuit city's that I've seen is horrible. It may just be the ones in my area. I'm not saying that "All" of them are like that. And I've also seen installs come from best buys and sound advice and places like that and they are not anything to brag about. The wires are run awful, then you take the door panels off and the speakers are mounted with one screw. Those are just some examples from the ones that I've seen. I'm sure that they are some installes in those places that are alot better than I am. But they didn't do the installs that I've seen come out of there. I understand that you get new installers that don't know anything and they don't do it to standard, but that's when whoever is in charge shouldn't let it leave with it in that condition.

As far as hearing the speakers out of the phase. Subwoofers are very easy to tell. They will be hooked up but they'll be very muted. The rest of the speakers if they are out of phase if you balance to the left then you can hear the mid bass in the speaker. If you slowly balance to the center then you can hear the mid bass fade out. If they are in phase then you can't tell a difference besides the volumn being louder from the other speaker. If you hook ALL speakers up the same there will NOT be any difference. If you have your left speaker hooked up one way and your right speaker hook up reveresed then you WILL tell a difference.

If I came across being rude, then I didn't mean to. I was saying what I've seen. Come down hear and get something installed at this Circuit City and see what you think. Then let our shop do it and tell me the difference.

 

HEY! Some of us Best Buy guys are alright.

 

yeah best buy isnt to horrible it all depends on who works on the car. I kno wi used to work at best buy and ive fixed stuff from best buy, circuit city,. audio king and so on. Thats why i use myself as my own level of quality control on my installs. If you want t done right you do it yourself and even then everybody makes mistakes. As for checking phase though i forget i havent been in the install buisness for a while but can you get a phase tester i though there was something like that for like if you where hard wiring a car like after a theft and where checking the wires for speak it would tell you if you had the phase right or if you had to switch wires for like when its hard to get to the speak to vissually check.

 

The easiest way to check to make sure that all your speakers are connected in phase with one another is by playing a mono recording. Sit in the middle of the car and play either a mono recording from a test disc or a test tone. If the speakers are in phase the tone will appear to come from the middle of the car. If they are not in phase the tone will have a disconnected character to it and you won't be able to localize where it is coming from.