Crossing speaker wires

[ra7c7er]

I was just sitting here thinking about my speakers and I got to thinking.

What happens if you hook up the speakers inverted? Left neutral and right positive to one speaker and right neutral and left positive to the other speaker.

Does it still work since both speakers still have a working positive and negative or does it blow up and burn your house down?

Also what would happen if you hook up both positives to a speaker? or both negatives?

 

[Copa1934]

OK, first speakers are not DC. However, the polarity is to keep them "in phase". Switching them around will, more often than not, have one speaker sounding a tad louder than the other. When doing this with individual drivers it tends to change the perceived depth of the music, in a manner of speaking, causing what to the ears sounds like a delay. No damage, though the phrasing of your statement made it sound like you meant "touching" wires rather than merely switching polarity.

 

[cratz2]

I think both positives yields the difference... Sort of a surround effect when run to the rears. Some car audio guys used to do that for rear fill. Most music just sounded a but spacious but some turned really trippy. I recall Nine Inch Nails yielded memorable moments.

No idea on the other stuff as I never tried them.

 

[89grand]

The Hafler circuit I believe, is both positives run to the appropriate speaker, then the negatives attached to each other. In other words L+ from the amp to L+ speaker, R+ from the amp to R+ speaker, then a connection between L- and R- speaker.

If you just wire one speaker out of phase + to - and - to +, you'll have weird unfocused imaging, and very little bass since the cones would be moving in opposite polarity. I don't believe you'll get any sound with two - or two + to the same speaker.

 

[Copa1934]

OK, first speakers are not DC. However, the polarity is to keep them "in phase". Switching them around will, more often than not, have one speaker sounding a tad louder than the other. When doing this with individual drivers it tends to change the perceived depth of the music, in a manner of speaking, causing what to the ears sounds like a delay. No damage, though the phrasing of your statement made it sound like you meant "touching" wires rather than merely switching polarity.

Wow, I did misread that. In automotive you can do this due to common ground (except of course higher end systems that don't use a floating ground). But with home audio I'm not sure, like 89grand, that would work. Not sure I'd want to risk experimentation either.