Are Your Speakers Wired Correctly?
Filed under Podcasting, Technology
Any system is only as good as the weakest link in the chain and audio systems are certainly no exception to the rule. Assuming that your music system is producing reasonably pleasant sounds, you may never stop to give it a second thought, but with a few simple tests you can check to make sure that your speakers are wired correctly and that you’re getting the best out of your system.
Attaching speakers to your Hi-Fi system usually only requires a few cables. You wouldn’t think that getting these cables mixed up would present much of a problem would you, providing your music plays back OK and no smoke comes out of the system?
Well, under most circumstances you’d be right, with a simple channel mix up being the most likely probable outcome, but if you have a real knack for getting things back to front, then you could have your speakers wired out-of-phase, which while it won’t do any damage, certainly won’t help you to get the best out of your system.
These potential problems are easy to spot with a few simple tests and luckily the corresponding remedies are equally simple.
Left and Right Tests
In the grand scale of things, getting your left and right speakers mixed up is not a major problem. If your left and right speakers are mixed up, your music will still come out in wonderful stereo (providing of course that you’re listening to a stereo track) it’s just that what should be coming out of the left-hand speaker is actually coming out of the right-hand speaker and vice versa.
Record producers and mix engineers spend weeks mixing and producing an album and as part of the process they will decide where in the mix to place certain instruments. So if you have a favourite track that has an instrument panned (music speak for stereo positioning of sounds) to one side, wouldn’t you prefer to listen to it as the artist intended rather than topsy turvey?
You would? Good.
Then try the following two fairly self explanatory tests on your music system. Listening to the left speaker test, you should hear Winnie’s voice coming out of the left hand speaker (or headphone) only and vice versa for the right speaker test.
Left Speaker Test:
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Right Speaker Test:
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If things don’t go according to plan, then you have either got your speakers wires mixed up (or headphones on the wrong way round), or the audio cabling (shown right) from your playback device to the amplifier crossed over.
Normally audio signal cables (as opposed to speaker cables) are colour coded with the red plug going to the red socket and white to white at each end of the cable.
You will need to check the wiring of your system, rewiring where necessary and then repeat the two tests to make sure that both channels are working and in the correct order.
The following diagram shows how to wire your speakers to your amplifier: 
Balance Test
Now that you’re happy that you have your left and rights sorted out, the next thing to check is your speaker balance.
When you listen to the following test, place your head as centrally as you can between your two speakers; you should hear Winnie coming from the dead centre of your speakers. In this case you are hearing equal amounts of Winnie from both speakers.
Centre Balance Test:
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If Winnie sounds to be coming either to the left or right of the centre position, you may need to check to see if your amplifier or system has a balance control. If it does, ensure that the balance control is in the centre position.
If after checking the balance control, things still sounds one sided, you may have a more fundamental problem with your system that requires investigation or professional attention. This could be as simple as a dirty connection or a dodgy interconnecting cable, or if things are worse it could be a more ingrained electronic or speaker problem.
Alternatively, if you can’t pin point the sound as definitely coming from the centre, you may have a phasing problem…
Phasing Test
A phasing problem with speakers is very simple to fix, but can significantly degrade your system’s sonic performance.
Trying to describe how out of phase speakers sound is a little difficult unless you’ve experienced it first hand. You’re likely to hear significantly less bass and instead of producing a strong centre image, the sound appears to stay within the speakers, making things sound rather disconnected.
Listen to the following and you should be able to hear the difference for yourself:
Speaker Phase Test:
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If the above test sounds perfectly fine, but the previous centre channel test sounded really odd, then your speakers are out of phase.
Fixing the Problem
Thankfully, while the effect can be quite strange, the fix is really simple.
Pick a speaker, but not both, this must only be done on one speaker. Now swap the two wires on the back of the speaker around. Usually the speaker will have two connections; one black (the negative or – connector) and one red (positive or + connector).
That should be it, job done. Now listen to the centre/balance test and phase test again to confirm that you have everything working hunky dory.
Sit Back and Relax
Now that you have your speakers wired up correctly with your lefts and rights where they should be and no strange out of phase effects, you can lie back, put your feet up and listen to my latest podcast in knowledge of a job well done.
You had no problems; excellent, so there’s no reason not to listen to my latest podcast either! 
Posted on 25 March 2009
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Hi
The above is the best article I’ve seen yet on common speaker problems. Your article is both funny and relevent. Thank you.
Bill Grandy
Windsor
Nova Scotia
Canada
WOW, is it just me or is every article on the internet on out of phase speakers out of phase itself?
For wiring speakers up correctly, you do the following (no batteries needed to check for pushing or popping, no swapping the wires, none of that crap):
Hook up a small piece of speaker wire to any of the speaker ports on the reciever/amp(front, rear channel whatever).
Now set your DVM to measure DC (we get the DC equivalent reading of the AC and subsequent polarity or phase).
Now, put the red lead from DVM to the wire thats connected to the red lead port, and do the same for the black lead of the DVM and place it on the wire connected to the black port of your reciever. Now you will get a reading, the numerical part of it you can ignore, what you want is + or – part of it. If its – , that means the rest of your speakers should be connected this exact way. It will show + if you reverse it which means you placed the black lead on the wire connected to red and red lead to wire connected to black, that means you shouldn’t connect the rest of your speakers that way.
So just to clarify if you are still confused:
(this is for your short testing wire you hooked up) If the reading you got while placing red lead to RED port wire and placing black lead to BLACK port wire is a – (negative symbol), then you know how the rest should look like when you place the DVM on the other wires.
That is, if you have a speaker wire coming out from some place in the wall or ceiling, and want to know how your speaker should be hooked up (which wire goes where), place your RED lead of your DVM to one of the wires, and BLACK lead to the remaining wire, if it gives you – (neg) symbol that means the RED lead wire will go to the RED speaker port, so now you know.
Just to add, I’m no expert, but this seems like simple logic to me, so don’t take my “expert” word for it if you know what I mean.
Hmm…looks like I could have complicated it more than I should have.
Here is an ASCII diagram for your test wire:
RED port ——— wire A ——- red lead —————
AMP/RECIEVER DVM reading
BLACK port ——— wire B ——- black lead ———
If DVM reading equals – (neg) then if you measure another “unkown” wire and get -(neg) reading, you know the correct configuration for the speaker.
Now for the unkown wire, place leads on wires until you get this same -(neg) reading, you now know that the red lead corresponds to the wire for the RED port on the reciever, etc…
Unfortunately, not everyone has Digital Volt Meters, or are comfortable with their use, which is why I tried to explain through examples what out-of-phase sounds like and a simple fix to the problem, without resorting to electrical test equipment.
Thanks for your comprehensive response though.
Just wanted to say thanks, my speakers were apparently reversed for the longest time with the balance way off lol
You’re welcome; glad it helped you to improve your system.
Thank you for this article. I stumbled across it when I was reading about Joint Stereo (also a very good article by the way). The audio examples of out-of- & in-phase were so helpful. Apparently, I’ve been fussy/lucky enough when setting up my equipment that I managed to get the speakers in-phase. But I’ve always wondered what out of phase speakers would sound like and now I don’t have to muck around with my wiring … I can simply bookmark your page. Thanks!
Thanks Jason, it’s always nice to know that people find them useful. Thanks for taking the time to leave your comment.