Out of Phase but wired correctly?

washingtonbc · 07-23-2007, 02:05 PM

Hello-

I recently hooked up some paradigm cinema adp's to my Yamaha rx-v661 receiver. I used the Yamaha's room mic and did the auto setup feature.

It said one of my surrounds was out of phase and I should check the wiring. I double checked every connection between the speakers and the receiver. I did it all correctly.

I reversed the red and the black and redid the auto setup.

Now it says everything is perfect.

How is this possible? Is it possible?

TimJC · 07-23-2007, 02:35 PM

It is possible that one of your Paradigm Cinema's is wired out of phase internally. While not highly likely, it is possible, and it would cause exactly the situation which you described.

Tim

JohnRice · 07-23-2007, 07:05 PM

Welcome to the forum Brian. You should be aware, it is against forum rules to post the same topic in multiple areas, such as with This thread

SethH · 07-23-2007, 08:29 PM

In line with the response from Tim, perhaps the Yamaha's speaker connections are mis-wired internally. Equally unlikely as the speaker being miswired internally, but I guess it's equally as likely as well. Try it with another speaker and see what happens with that.

Matt Tucker · 07-24-2007, 01:07 PM

I had similar out of phase problems when using my Yamaha 2600 auto setup feature. I wound up reversing it even though it looked like it was wired fine. At first I wondered if the speaker crossover was causing a problem. Since some speaker crossovers cause a 180 degree phase shift near the crossover point, it is common practice to put the woofer or tweeter out of phase to keep the phase correct where the two overlap. However, if that was the case you would think all of your surrounds would show up out of phase.

I do not remember if the Yamaha said one or both of my Energy Veritas speakers were out of phase. I never figured it out, but I am happy with the sound.

Matt

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Kevin C Brown · 07-24-2007, 07:16 PM

I don't know... I have come across this a few times, and most times the recommendation from either the manufacturer and/or the manual is: if you are certain you have the speakers wired correctly, ignore this message from the receiver or pre/pro. You could also whip out Avia, if you have it, and go through the speaker phase tests it contains. You could also try and listen yourself either way and see if you can hear a difference. But to be honest, I'd trust the QC of the speaker's manufacturer more than I would how some of these software algorithms determine phase.

LanceJ · 07-24-2007, 09:59 PM

I can't remember who wrote them, but several times over the years (including before these auto-setup systems appeared) different members here have opened up their speakers to find the wiring reversed. It is true that tweeters and mids are sometimes intentionally wired backwards, but IIRC this would be done on the crossover board, and not the driver leads themselves, since it is expected the manufacturer's assembly workers & repair people later down the road wouldn't know that the design engineers had chosen that type of circuit on purpose and instead would think it to be a paperwork or construction flaw and naturally would want to fix the "problem".

Usually each pair of driver leads has a different size connector on the end to prevent this problem in the assembly environment but not always, so it still can happen occasionally.

Matt Tucker · 08-06-2007, 06:43 PM

After this discussion, I had to put in video essentials to see if the front speaker phase was right (it was my front right speaker the Yamaha said was out of phase even though wires/terminal marks/colors said it should have been correct.

When the guy in the video "got lost in the room" the focus definitely went away and I couldnt' localize him. When he went back, his voice was clearly in the center between the two front speakers.

For me the Yamaha phase check worked out well.

Matt