17
Oper
atio
n
Speaker Phase
Speaker wire has two conductors. One
conductor is attached to the negative (-)
terminals and one conductor is attached
to the positive (+) terminals of both your
speaker and your amplifier. Usually, the
wire is marked for your convenience.
There are different ways wires are marked:
a stripe on one wire, a ribbed area of one
conductor you can only feel, different col-
ors of metal wire on each conductor, or
there might be a fabric strand or string
wound into one of the conductors. Of
course, there are some wires which
appear completely identical. Be careful, or
you might make a mistake.
If you make a mistake, one speaker will be
playing “out-of-phase” with the other
speaker. An out-of-phase pair of speakers
work against each other and the sound of
the two speakers playing together will be
lacking in bass and be “phasey” sounding.
If you suspect the sound is not right and
you cannot see any markings on the wire,
try this simple test:
1. Stand half way between the speakers.
2. Play some music with the amplifier
or radio set to Mono.
3. Listen to the richness of the bass and
the loudness of the sound.
4. Turn off the amplifier and reverse
the connections on one amplifier
channel only.
5. Repeat the listening test with the
same setting of the volume control.
When the sound has a richer bass
and is slightly louder the speakers are
working together or “in-phase”.
Operation
Listening at Higher Volumes
It requires more power to achieve a reason-
able volume of sound in a large room than
it does in a small room. It is possible (even if
you are not a teenager) to turn the volume
so high that the amplifier
runs out of power
.
This creates “clipping” distortion.
Clipping distortion makes treble sound
very harsh and unmusical. When you hear
harsh sounding treble from any good
speaker, turn the volume down immedi-
ately! Those harsh sounds are masking
some much more powerful ultra-high-fre-
quency sound spikes which will quickly
damage any fine loudspeaker. You are
much less likely to damage a speaker with
a large amplifier because it will be very
loud indeed before it produces any clip-
ping distortion.
Cleaning
You can clean the speaker with a damp-
ened soft cloth or paper towel. If the
speaker is mounted high up on a wall or
ceiling, use a broom to gently brush it off.
