swapping the speakers

[devlux]

hi
I found out that my speakers were connected wrong - the right speaker to the left channel and left Speaker to the right
I was wondering if this can cause some sound quality problems?

no cynical answers please, technical only

thanks

 

[Chrispy]

So these speakers are to be positioned to the right or left particularly or you just had the left and right outputs from your amp crossed? Why not just change the connections/positions now?

 

[devlux]

So these speakers are to be positioned to the right or left particularly or you just had the left and right outputs from your amp crossed? Why not just change the connections/positions now?

changed it back, but just wondering if that's matters

 

[Chrispy]

If you want the intended presentation as recorded...or not.

 

[devlux]

If you want the intended presentation as recorded...or not.

I don't care if the guitar is on the left or on the right
the technical question is if the sound quality may be changed because of the mix (sound stage, details, ....)

 

[Chrispy]

I don't care if the guitar is on the left or on the right
the technical question is if the sound quality may be changed because of the mix (sound stage, details, ....)

What? Just call it reversed.

 

[FrantzM]

I don't care if the guitar is on the left or on the right
the technical question is if the sound quality may be changed because of the mix (sound stage, details, ....)

No.

 

[Grotti]

I don't care if the guitar is on the left or on the right
the technical question is if the sound quality may be changed because of the mix (sound stage, details, ....)

Well, it is hard to answer your question without at least being mistaken as ironic. I suggest to connect the left speaker to the left output and the right speaker to the right output. Might be of help for classical recordings, where the placement of the orchestra follows certain rules.

I could only imagine the SQ to be altered when for example one speaker is located near a corner or a sidewall and after the swap it has to reproduce some signals which were located on the other speaker before. And due to the not optimal placement it might effect the overall SQ.

But this is an academic question really: just connect the speakers as intended in stereo (right and left) and call it a day.

 

[JSmith]

I was wondering if this can cause some sound quality problems?

Apart from the wrong channels coming out of the wrong speakers, no... it's not going to damage anything at all.

What is more important to be careful of is having the phase correct, so ensuring positive is connected to positive (usually red) and negative to negative (usually black) and that the same connections match to the amp. If these are the wrong way around, that will affect sound quality for sure as they will be out of phase.



JSmith

 

[dshreter]

In ordinary circumstances this would not cause sound quality issues. f you’re just playing in plain old unchanged stereo the quality should be exactly the same with the stereo image reversed.

A couple hypotheticals where you could impact the quality.

• If there were some automatic room corrections applied based on speaker placement then they could theoretically be computed incorrectly.
• If used for AV purposes, having left visuals correspond to right sound and right visuals correspond to left sound could be considered a quality issue as it would detract from the experience

 

[escksu]

hi
I found out that my speakers were connected wrong - the right speaker to the left channel and left Speaker to the right
I was wondering if this can cause some sound quality problems?

no cynical answers please, technical only

thanks

You meant you connect left channel to right speaker and vice versa? If so, yes your imaging and other spatial effects might be a little odd. Some say they could hear a difference, some same they can't.

If for movies, this will be very obvious esp. in a multi-speaker setup.