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[andrewberg]

Is there a way to switch audio channels (L <> R) in cases where speakers need to be placed in 'switched' positions due to wiring limits? (In my case, active speaker R has to stand left of hearing position because of wall socket...)

I have seen the DSP Studio option "Reverse the polarity of this speaker" (in 'Room Correction') -- is that the same thing, or what is this for?

Thanks in advance!

[dtc]

Why not just switch the wires on the amp?

[Matt]

Just add an "Order channels" effect to one of the Parametric Equalizers and drag the channels into the order you want.

DSP Studio is a pretty powerful thing

The polarity is if the negative and positive wires are switched.

[andrewberg]

Why not just switch the wires on the amp?

We're not talking of amps here, just an externel USB soundcard, to which some speaker sets are connected by simple RCA/headphone cables... no way switching wires on those... ;-)

Or wait, I might be able to swap the red/white connectors for RCA attached speakers. But is that a good idea? (Besides, it leaves me with those attached by headphone cables... which is why I looked for a all in one solution... ;-)

[andrewberg]

Just add an "Order channels" effect to one of the Parametric Equalizers and drag the channels into the order you want.

Thanks, I may have a try with that...

The polarity is if the negative and positive wires are switched.

So is 'positive/negative wires' the same as 'left/right RCA connectors' (you know, the red/white plugs)? I did try this option in 'Room Correction', but couldn't hear any difference in the stereo effect...

[Hendrik]

Polarity would be switching the red/white, yes. In normal content hearing the polarity difference can be a bit tricky though. There are test samples that make it very obvious however.

Apparently I was wrong. RCA carries both parts. So switching RCA connectors would just switch left/right, not the polarity. Polarity mis-matches usually happen if you manually connect cables to the speaker/amp terminals wrongly, either without plugs at all or maybe using banana plugs.

[andrewberg]

I still don't get it; to my knowledge audio speakers have no 'negative/positive' (+/-) poles like mains power lines do... (where connecting wrongly can cause severe damage, and will blow your home fuse ;-)

The way I see it, a stereo audio cable consists of a left channel (usually white plug) and a right one (red plug). In RCA type cables these are separated (1 wire per cable), in headphone cables they are combined to one (but still two wires inside the cable). Each of these lines 'carries' a distinct sound signal, the left/right stereo channel.

Assuming this was correct, could there be a misunderstanding in the DSP option "Reverse polarity"...? I guess it means the same thing.

[Hendrik]

Any electrical system has a positive and negative pole (ground). RCA cables have two wires, 3.5mm headphone cables have 3 wires - 1 per speaker, and one shared ground (that goes to both speakers). Sometimes the ground is also being carried as part of the mesh shielding around the cable, but it still needs to be there. In RCA plugs the inner pin and the outer circular part are the two poles, on 3.5mm jacks you can see the 3 different areas separated on the pin with a small black strip.

Connecting the speaker terminals the wrong way around won't cause damage, it'll just cause the speaker to move into the wrong direction. When its supposed to go out, it'll go in, and vice-versa. This can have effects on the audio, from very subtle to very obvious depending on the audio, but it won't cause any damage.

[andrewberg]

That's interesting, thanks! However, as we are talking about PC audio, available jacks & plugs are either of RCA or headphone type, so polarities are fixed, and reversing can only have undesired, or at least unintended effects on your stereo sound... ;-)

I guess that's because some of the DSP features were originally designed for larger sound mixing environments...

[Hendrik]

I don't have an extremely huge or super expensive setup, but my speakers have terminals for manual cabling, so you can easily screw that up. And in fact I had the polarity on one speaker wrong for a few weeks and didn't really notice (until I did).
Most AV Receivers around here have terminals for ordinary speaker cables, which comes with two wires, and often no plugs (or banana plugs, which are still one wire per plug only). PC stereo speakers probably don't use such a setup however.

[andrewberg]

Nor do I ;-), but all of the speakers attached to my USB soundcard are 'active', i. e. deliver their own amplification. (Which is why they need a wall socket for power nearby, my starting point for this topic... ;-)

The built in audio jacks of standard laptops are just made for headphones, they don't deliver enough power for standalone speakers. This may be different on Desktop PCs with external or 'discrete' sound adapters like you have...

But either way, if I happened to mix up the wiring polarity for speakers, and provided I noticed, I would never use a DSP feature to correct that, but go and reconnect them properly... ;-)

[dtc]

Hendrik - Banana plugs use 2 wires, just like other speaker cables.  They may have a case on them that makes them look like one wire, but there are two wires inside.  You can certainly connect the simple clear 2 wire speaker cable to banana plugs. I do it all the time.

[Hendrik]

We must be knowing different banana plugs, the one I know are definitely only one wire, and are typically used for such speaker terminals, like these here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_connector They even have speakers as an example on there!

Even says right in the first sentence: "A banana connector (commonly banana plug [...]) is a single-wire (one conductor) electrical connector"
As such I have two on each end of the speaker cables, one for each wire, color coded red/black, so I can just plug them into the AV and speaker terminals, and don't have to use those screws to fixate the bare cables (which I did previously, and its so annoying)

Both my AVR and my Power Amp wouldn't know what to do with a 2-wire plug for the speakers. On the amps output side it seems always to be separated, quite typically with the cable screws that also take banana plugs.

[dtc]

Sorry for the confusion. A banana plug is indeed a single wire connection, but you need two of them to make a speaker connection.

[swiv3d]

Andrew, if you want the left speaker to act as the right and the right to act as the left just plug the  red into the white output and the white into the red output. Simplesssss!