I am a fool, but you probably already knew that.

Posted by: Rockingdoc on 16 February 2004

I am a tweaker. Forever soldering up new home-made cables to try and beat Naim's designers etc.
For the last year I have been unhappy with the sound of my system (LP12/CDS2/52/Snaxo/250/250/SBL)
and this has produced ever more tweaking, followed by despair and listening to less music.
This weekend I decided to re-fit the SBL's cross-overs, as the passive sound I remembered was better than the active.
To my horror, I discovered that I had fitted the polarity tag on one of the speaker cables the wrong way round. I have been running my tweaters out of phase FOR A YEAR!
The woofers were in phase of course, and that is my only excuse for not working out what was wrong by listening.
Please feel free to offer abuse.
Posted on: 16 February 2004 by Steve B
Slap.

Steve B
Posted on: 16 February 2004 by Tarquin Maynard - Portly
Roll Eyes

Regards

Mike

On the Yellow Brick Road and Happy
Posted on: 16 February 2004 by Hermann
No abuse form me R..doc,

Beeing in hifi since more than 25 years and thought I know most of it.

I had to lern that not all is going as I believed. Having played my system without earth for long time. My LP12 wasnt earth and I didnt know that. Owned some Naim CD player and with it it sounded good. Well the CD player provide the earth to the system. W/o CD player I didnt know why the system degraded in sound. Confused

Due to a hum with my new 552 we (my dealer and Naim) found out that the missing earth was the reason. Shame on me and thanks to Naim ! Red Face

Now it sounds good. Smile

Hermann
Posted on: 16 February 2004 by Dev B
Malcolm, don't worry about it. At least the system should now sing as it should. regards
Posted on: 18 February 2004 by Rockingdoc
The system, unsurprisingly, sounds better than it ever has.
For the benefit of others who may tread this path; out of phase tweeters only seemed to result in a high-end harshness, not the typical weedy difficult to locate total out of phase sound. It got worse the louder the system was played. It actually sounded more like an electronic or mains supply problem.
Can't stop playing it now. I have regained my faith, even though some of my boxes are well overdue a re-cap. Hurry up Richard.
Posted on: 21 February 2004 by Team Reeves
At least you (and more importantly your ears) spotted it. Relax and enjoy.

Sounds good to me.
Posted on: 21 February 2004 by Rasher
You wally!
Smile
Hey...free upgrade.
Of course, I would neverdo such a thing. Roll Eyes
I've done worse actually...
Posted on: 21 February 2004 by Don Atkinson
Rockingdoc

as Tom points out, you're in good company. Mick (and his 15 friends) all missed an out-of-phase speaker

....and some naimless hifi company did an entire hifi show with their cd player screwed down ready for transit......alegedly...

happiness and experience....what bliss....

Cheers

Don
Posted on: 21 February 2004 by Haroon
Errm, didnt someone mention in the thread about Micks doings, that tweaters are normally wired out of phase anyway?