speaker polarity

[tp4tissue]

Does it matter if it's backwards ?  as long as they're in phase with each other ?

while fixing an old headphone today, I did the battery cone test to check coil polarity.

Then I flipped polarity on both sides, and I couldn't hear the difference.

[fohat.digs]

It depends, but probably not fatal.

Say a band is recorded with lead instruments on the right and vocals and percussion on the left. You wire up your speakers out of phase and theoretically get something like a "mirror image" which might or might not make a significant difference.

On the other hand, if it was a recording of a live concert and you were actually there, it might seem pretty odd.

[tp4tissue]

/headscratch,

left is still left, right is still right,  I flipped the polarity, and could not hear the difference.  Positive / Negative terminal on the speaker

[hvontres]

I think the only time you would have issues if one of the two speakers was out of phase with the other. But I think that would be more of an issue in a multi-driver setup in a single enclosure, since having the drivers out of phase would cause them to cancel each other out.

[yui]

Does it matter if it's backwards ?  as long as they're in phase with each other ?

while fixing an old headphone today, I did the battery cone test to check coil polarity.

Then I flipped polarity on both sides, and I couldn't hear the difference.

(Attachment Link)

this is alternating current, there is no positive or negative, well there is but it switches at about 20Hz to 22KHz depending on what you listen to , only the phase matter (the reason why you have a color on the cables).
Although in some very specialty and cheap system that may not be quite true, as they could make a speaker meant to have a dc current across it, to save a few pennies on 2 capacitors on the amp board, i only ever saw that in a pair of very cheap amplified pc speakers though.
and if you are out of phase you will hear it rather quick, or if you do like me and expect the black to be the common and wire one of the speaker across the 2 channels you will also hear it even quicker (i had a red, white and black, the common was the red...)

[bliss]

Absolute phase is important, but not everybody hears the difference. Imagine a kick drum, with correct abs. phase it will increase sound pressure on the attack, otherwise it will generate negative, 'sucking' sound pressure resulting in unnatural sound. The difference is definitely not in-your-face. In any case, always have left and right speakers or headphone coils wired with the same polarity.

Ideally, you have a phase switch somewhere in your system to compensate source material that is recorded with wrong absolute phase. For example, with any new CD I listen to, I check whether 0 or 180 degree phase sounds better, and then keep this setting for this recording. I can achieve that with a remote controlled DAC.

What's more important than any theory is that it sounds right to you. Use what sounds better to you!

[tp4tissue]

Built a little AB switch for the polarity.  There IS a difference,  With the conventional polarity it sounds centered.  With the polarity reversed, the sound feels like displaced slightly to the right.

one can tell Tp4 is running out of stuff to do.. kekekeke