It’s not a big thing, I agree. Just add “when facing the music”, with the “Chn 1 left” label.
I would have to agree HH and an entire thread on the subject is bewildering! It can easily be checked with the balance control and swapped if necessary.
Can you be absolutely certain?
After all, for someone with a weak heart, the shock playing Roger Waters’ Amused to Death in the dark, and having Bill Hubbard suddenly start speaking from the sofa right next to them on their right, when he is normally seated on their left, might be enough to finish them off…
This might be a little off topic but I had a recent experience that might make you chuckle. My AV receiver was disappointing me and I decided to go for an upgrade. I plumbed in the new receiver which had one of these auto speaker calibration routines using a microphone that you placed at the normal seating position. As this was an improved version then it had a stereo microphone. The auto cal failed and the error message said ‘rear surround speakers are connected left to right and vice versa’. Did I do this during the upgrade? Was it there before? Is that why the previous AV receiver was underwhelming? I purposely did not retry the old one again, just far to frustrating/ embarrassing.
Colour coding would be easier I think, just like you have with the positive and negative sockets - This would also be a nice welcome (for those that see) with Naim’s own NACA5 speaker cable too…
So would you have one cable, say, yellow and the other blue (not wanting to confuse things with the red and black plugs)? How about different colour speakers?
Actually I use colour coding: but then I tri-amp, with three speaker cables for each channel and three interconnects per channel from the active crossover - and mixing up bass and others could destroy a speaker driver. My approach was to mark the ends of each cable with coloured tape (using rainbow set of insulating tape), a piece of the same tape next to each of the terminals on the back of the speakers, ditto both ends of interconnects. With the power amps I have put another piece of the corresponding colour tape on the rear of the top cover, just above where each socket is located, both with speaker outlets and channel inputs, likewise the active crossover outputs. Being on the top cover I can see it whether I am viewing from the rear, or reaching over from the front. All pieces are neatly cut, and look OK.
And, belt and braces, I have also written on each piece of tape (e.g L bass, L mid, etc). My thinking was partly for me, but partly so if anything happened to me it would be clear to someone else.
For anyone struggling, the same approach could be used in a standard system, just using two colours of tape.
I used to run a full active Naim system and colour coding would have been nice rather than me having to look for silly bits of insulating tape and scissors just to connect it all up. It’s what I used to do. Ok, it’s not a first world problem but it’s still an annoyance.
would have…
I don’t see the issue. We all have easily identifiable pieces of music with a clear and well established L & R in the mix, and if you happen to be a classical music conductor you know where to expect the trumpets & the violins to be.
That’s always my confirmation check; play something familiar, is it correct? And does the balance work accordingly?
I am not you.
Have you ever tried to do this with a full Naim active system when you can hear something is not quite right?
PS i’d love to be a fly on the wall.
I just wish the writing was a bit bigger, its an age thing, or more specifically a failing eye sight thing! :0)
You win hands down on the being baffled by technology Stephen. The original question above was fairly simple, there’s a simple way to establish which way is correct. Congrats on winning the who’s had the biggest wotsit competition too, although I don’t see how an active system makes identifying L & R any harder. Same goal surely, musical stage portraying the music.
in my room i preferred right to left and left to right . The sound is better balanced like that.
Surprisingly common abbreviation / phonetic spelling error: would’ve
Diitto could’ve and should’ve.)
Maybe it depends on where you come from, in China and Japan they write/read books from right to left, not left to right as we do in the West
i wanted to say left channel of my 250 dr to the right speaker. Normally it should be left with left and right with right. I inversed.
With my active system I used to have the top stereo amp for the lefthand speaker and lower amp for the righthand speaker(or was it the other way around?). channels 1 were the treble units and channels 2 were the bass/midrange units. All using NACA5. Easy. The only time it got a bit tricky was when I soldered all the cables up using SA8 plugs - this did take some thought.
I’ve not run an active systen, but presumably on a newer active rig with a separate amp for each of tweeter, mid and bass (if three way), you could have different left/right for each cone-set.
Active driving is not inherently more difficult, but with multiple speaker cables, ditto interconnects to the power amps, you need to know which wire is which, with a greater chance of doing it wrong. This is especially important with bass/mid/treble channels, as mixing them up can have very expensive consequences, while mixing up L/R so, say the mid is crossed over not the bass and treble, could lead to a very confused sound.
Thanks all for the many fine answers, like most threads it seems it doesn’t take long for it to have a life of its own. As stated earlier my question was a little mischievous, I’ve always had “crossed wires” and even as an Australian I’ve always been able to work it out. What I really wanted to know is why they’re apparently on the wrong side, Richard it seems has provided that answer.