Cartridge wired out of phase.

d-ray657

Ain't this boogie a mess
It might be my imagination, but should wiring a cartridge out of phase have the same effect as wiring speakers out of phase? I recently tried to change the cartridge in my AR-XB, until I discovered that the carts I had available wouldn't work in the AR headshell. After I put the existing cart back in, I seem to have lost some sound quality. I switched the bottom wires and the sound returned to normal. The switched wires seemed to have the same effect as out of phase speakers, but I'm curious if the theory behind the two phenomena are the same.

Regards,

D-Ray
 
yes. theory is the same. if the signal is backwards in one channel, doesn't matter where that signal is reversed (cartridge wire or speaker wire etc). the signal is still equally and identically backwards. so speaker drivers travel opposite directions from each other during otherwise mono sections resulting in phase cancellation.

funny mid sound in your head, bass severely lacking.
 
I did this the other day, accidentally, on my Empire 208 as the green and blue were about the same color. Sounded just like out of phase speakers.
 
phase is just a push pull thing. there's plus and minus. one makes each speaker go out, the other makes each speaker go in (although not always the same direction between drivers within a single multi-way loudspeaker depending on crossover design... and that's by design so we won't get into it here).

that is the same from a cartridge output or from a tape output or from a cd output or mic output (there's a plus and a minus, one is positive voltage, the other negative (or at least less than a given center value equivalent to zero in the circuit). When that's amplified it's made bigger to drive speakers or headphones, but either way it still has to go the same way to each speaker or headphone driver or else it's reverse phased, resulting in that "speakers wired out of phase" sound.

many amplifiers and preamplifiers reverse the phase back and forth internally often several times. as long as it is reversed the same number of times for each channel it doesn't matter though, they just have to match.
 
The only issue is that some cartridges have connected one channel's earth pin to the cartridge body, as a shield. You can't swap the phase on this channel, since then the cart body becomes conneted to the 'hot' signal wire.
 
The only issue is that some cartridges have connected one channel's earth pin to the cartridge body, as a shield. You can't swap the phase on this channel, since then the cart body becomes conneted to the 'hot' signal wire.

interesting! ya learn something new every day :)
 
There was a run of Denon DL160's that were wired incorrectly, I had one and had to reverse the right channel to get it to sound right. I was at first disappointed and then stumbled upon the info on the web somewhere and thought I would give it a try and bingo! After that it was a great cartridge.
Regards
 
I imagine that if one didn't want to immediately remove the headshell again, he could reverse the wires on one of the speakers as a temporary remedy. That would work until it was time to use another component, wouldn't it?

Regards,

D-Ray
 
G'day all, as an extension to the whole 'out of phase' thing, has anyone heard of the 'OOPS' wiring configuration for phono? I actually use this wiring on my main system. I wire one channel deliberately out of phase (reversed), by only on that one channel.

I use the right channel, but then of course the right channel speaker has to be reversed in order to bring both channels back into 'overall' correct phase. Doing this can actually improve things such as improved stereo separation, reduced crosstalk and reduced overall noise and distortion through phase cancellation within the amplifying electronics.

This is actually a very old 'trick' well known to technical old timers. Some systems benefit from from the OOPS configuration more than others, but generally there is some improvement.

It can be inconvenient as if the cartridge is wired in this way then all other program sources will be out of phase as a direct consequence. I have a quick change switch set-up on my right speaker to account for this. Try it out sometime. It really works! Regards, Felix aka catman.
 
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interesting! I wonder why that works? maybe it's helping work around some weakness in certain amplifiers or similar?

while I would generally think that's a placebo effect thing (that it really isn't doing anything and you're imaging things) I will totally keep and open mind here. amps/preamps are certainly complex things - I'd like to know the theory behind that though so I don't feel like a complete dufus for not "getting" it LoL
 
Phasing, as I understand it

I read somewhere a long time ago - and this only applies to larger speakers, not tweeters - that testing a speaker for proper wiring and phasing requires 2 wires and a small flashlight battery. The wires are attached to the speaker's positive and negative terminals. The speaker's negative wire goes on the battery's negative (flat) pole, and it's positive wire will be given momentary contact to the battery's positive (dimpled) pole. When the positive wire is momentarily against the battery positive pole the speaker cone will momentarily push out if it is correctly wired. If both (L/R) speakers so connected push out with momentary contact they are correctly in phase.

If everything in the stereo system has been correctly wired, from manufacturer through installer, a simultaneous positive charge applied to both speakers should cause the speakers to push out together and a properly positioned listener will hear the sound as strongly coming from the middle of the sound field. Out of phase speakers will have one speaker pushing out while the other is pulling in. This will cause weak lows and imaging problems such as hearing sounds previously known to be center positioned to appear on both edges of the sound field. (Been there, done this.)

When a drum head is struck the impact forces a sharp energy wave outward into the air. For a speaker to accurately recreate this sound it must push outward. If an observer can see both speaker channel's drivers pulse outward to create the sound of drum beats he (or she) can be "reasonably" assured that everything from cartridge to speaker connections is correctly wired. (I know that two "wrongs" could make a "right", but I am assuming we have all been very very careful.):D
 
G'day all, this is from A.J. Van Den Hul's FAQ article on the theory behind the 'OOPS' wiring configuration.

162 Q: An old broadcast technician told me that I had to reverse the connections at my cartridge in one channel and
also at the loudspeaker in the same channel. So e.g. in the left channel both the cartridge and the loudspeaker. He told
that the sound should be better after both reversals have been implemented. How is this possible ?
A: The answer is very simple. Thanks to all kinds of signal leakage (crosstalk) inside your stereo amplifier, there are other
sounds coming from your loudspeakers than you would expect considering the quality of your signal source (e.g. your
cartridge).
By inverting the input to e.g. the left channel a kind of balancing effect inside the stereo amplifier is brought about; Both
the two leaking (cross-talking) signals (from left towards right out of phase and from right towards left in phase) cancel
out internally.
To correct the phase again you also need to reverse your left loudspeaker’s connections, otherwise the final result will be an out-of-phase sound from the left channel. (For some listeners this does not make any difference because their whole
they are already listening out-of-phase...)
When you switch back to your CD player (just to compare with how good your analog system plays) don’t forget to
reverse your left loudspeaker’s polarity again, otherwise the CD sound is out-of-phase or “OOP”.
 
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You'd really have to have a pretty messed-up preamp and amp for this to apply. Seriously. Crosstalk in a decent preamp and amp is damn low.

I think the improvement would be more psychological than anything else. And I can only envision having to rewire my bloody system every time I go from vinyl to digital or FM.

File this one under 'Dubious at best'.
 
G'day all, as I said previously, in a good system one can only expect minimal improvements but I've personally found significantly improved stereo imaging with my M97xE, which is possibly expected given that the M97xE has only 'ok' stereo separation specs. Regards, Felix aka catman.
 
Don't most cartridges have crosstalk numbers in the 20-30db range and a decent preamp should be in the 100db range so even if you reduce the preamp number further you're still not going to change the much more dominant cartridge number.

Or have I missed something here.
 
Catman...the explanation you previously posted pointed the finger at the amplification chain, not the cartridge. If the source of the 'problem' is the cart, swapping wires all day isn't going to do anything for you.

The root of the 'theory' from Van der Hul seems to be based on an effect used in balanced professional wiring to eliminate noise (common-mode rejection), if I'm understanding his reasoning. And like I said, if the root of the issue is the cartridge, wire-swapping is a waste of time.
 
G'day all, sorry I'm not feeling overly well thanks to diabetes high blood glucose at the moment, but the idea with OOPS is the phase cancellation of unwanted signals (crosstalk etc) that occurs when phase and out of phase signals interact.

With well designed equipment the improvement will be marginal but especially with less than perfect set ups, audible improvement is attainable. As I said before I've certainly noted improvements in stereo imaging with the M97xE on my main system.

Give it a try and see if you can notice any improvement. If you don't, that's fine. Regards, Felix aka catman.
 
This is actually a very old 'trick' well known to technical old timers. Some systems benefit from from the OOPS configuration more than others, but generally there is some improvement.

It halves the demand on the power supply on stereo amplifiers that share a common PSU. Sony use it in some of their car amps.
 
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