Those of you have the PSB straus goldi's read this (1 Viewer)

[Bruce Chang]

I was tinking around with the PSB goldi's today took the drivers off and inspected it. The 10inch midbass IS DEFINATLY OUT OF PHASE. I did the battery test and the woofer sucked in instead of out. Wierd! Then I screwed around with the phasing on the mids. I revesed the phase on the right mid and now I have a central image. My PSB's sound awesome now. The soundstage was life like, very high and wide. Before I couldn't find a central image and it sounded more diffused. So far everything seems to be working great and I love my PSBs alot more.

 

[Andrew Santos]

isn't it supposed to be out of phase by design?

 

[Bruce Chang]

andrew, I don't know if it's suppose to be out of phase. Some guy from PSB told me that I should put it in phase, but then everything would still cancel out. So I either put one speaker out of phase or in phase. Whatever I did it sounds 100 times better.

 

[Bhagi Katbamna]

now I have a central image.

Mine always had a solid center image.

 

[Walt N]

Unless a first order time-aligned design, it's not unusual for a mid-driver to be out of phase with the woofer and tweeter in a three way speaker. This is done to prevent mid-range suckout and achieve a flatter response.

Were both speakers wired the same way? If so, I don't think there was any mistake there.

 

[John F. Palacio]

I think Bruce said he changed the polarity of the RIGHT mid-range driver (and ONLY the right), which would indicate mis wiring at the factory or??????

I also interpret that he had a diffuse center image, but judging from an earlier post, reversing polarity on one channel would not do the trick. This would corroborate that one channel had the mid-range out of phase, as the center image is probably shared by the woofer, mid-range and tweeter.

His polarity reversal has apparently fixed the problem.

Bruce please correct me if I have not understood this properly.

My only question is: How did this polarity SNAFU occur?

 

[Bruce Chang]

John, you got it right on the dot. I only changed the right mid driver. I was having a diffused center image and could not pin point where the voices were. What does SNAFU mean?

 

[Walt N]

"Situation Normal, All F@@ked Up". Which may be how I had your original message.

 

[John F. Palacio]

"What does SNAFU mean?
Hi, Bruce. It basically means screw-up. I was wondering whether PSB had mis-wired these (not very likely) or whether the dealer or previous owner had been messing around with them. Just curious. In any event glad to hear your problem has been resolved.

Happy listening!

John

 

[Bruce Chang]

John, I don't think PSB screwed up. I think my room is messed up. But everything seems fine now.

 

[John F. Palacio]

"I don't think PSB screwed up. I think my room is messed up. But everything seems fine now."

I cannot think of a listening environment that would necessitate to reverse polarity on one driver of one channel of a three-way speaker system in order to be in phase.

Can somebody please throw some enlightenment here?
Or should I just go straight to the funny farm?

 

[Saurav]

I think you should compare the left and right speakers. It is quite possible for tweeters, woofers and mids to be connected out of phase with each other, I have seen several crossover designs which require this. However, the left and the right speakers should be wired the same way, whatever way that is. It's possible that you got a miswired speaker, and the change you did put the speakers in phase - who knows. However, if you've now got the two speakers wired differently, I wonder why that's giving you a better center image. Also, if you now have both the same way, you still don't know if it's the "right" way - basically, one of your speakers was right and one was wrong, you don't know which is which. You changed one, so now they could be both right or both wrong
If you're not scared of experimenting, try out different combinations and stick with whatever sounds best to you. I can't see any harm in that, I don't *think* you'll damage the drivers by connecting them opposite of what the designed intended.

 

[John F. Palacio]

"It's possible that you got a miswired speaker, and the change you did put the speakers in phase - who knows.'

That's my point. If you read this post very carefully you will see that Bruce is of the opinion that the speakers were wired correctly, but that because of his "weird" room he had to reverse polarity on ONE mid-range driver.

 

[Justin Doring]

It is not uncommon for manufacturers to purposely wire drivers out of phase, as this can often have sonic benefits, but if this is the case, then the same drivers on BOTH speakers should be wired out of phase. Since you only changed the driver on ONE speaker and the sound "came into place," that indicates that either PSB miswired one of the speakers or the previous owner miswired it. A bad room is not the cause here.

 

[John F. Palacio]

I'm outta here, bye!

John

 

[Andrew Santos]

i would think on a 2600 dollar speaker, things like miswiring would be double checked at the factory.

 

[Marc H]

You would think they would use different size spade terminals on the driver to prevent any chance of mis-wiring.