Testing Speaker's Phase

[clsgman]

To reduce the appearance of wiring (and To appease the wife), I spliced existing speaker wire onto new monster cable. Unfortunately, the existing cable in the wall has no stripe or other means to distinguish the + or - ends.

Other than using one's ears, is there a surer method to tell whether my surround speakers are in or out of phase?

[RuSsMaN]

1.2 volt AA battery. Do a *rough* splice, and disconnect the amp end. Touch what you think is pos to pos, neg to neg, if the woofer on the speaker moves OUTWARD, you have correct phase, if it moves INWARD, you are wired out of phase.

Hope that makes sense.

Cheers,
Russ

[MxStYlEpOlKmAn]

Even HD wire has a way of telling - from +! ;)

[gidrah]

Great test RuSsMaN! I was thinking the mono vs. stereo test, but you had the better answer anyways.

[clsgman]

Thanks RuSsMaN! Just one problem. I've got RM6000 satellites with non removable covers. Any other ideas? Otherwise I' just have run new cable to be sure

[gidrah]

Placing a single sheet of newspaper or gift wrap paper over the woofer section and observing this should give similar results.

[burdette]

Just test the electrical continuity of the wire, unless you're concerned one of your components has its phase reversed somehow.

Mark one end of one wire either near the amp or speaker... go to the other end of the run and electrically check to see which wire is the other end of the one you marked. If you have a V/A/O meter, test for open or closed circuit using the ohmeter. Otherwise, use anything you have.. battery and flashlight bulb, etc, to test which end is the correct one. Mark them permanently.

[TroyD]

any reason you couldn't run down to Home Depot and pick up some new wire thereby eliminating the need to splice?

IMO, that would be your best option.

BDT

[TonyPTX]

I just picked up the Sound & Vision Home Theater Tune-Up DVD at BestBuy over the weekend (check out the special interest section) for about $18. The DVD contains all sorts of audio tests, and one specifically was the phase test. The test works out really well and it's easy to determine if your speakers are out of phase that way.