Members guitarman3001 Posted December 16, 2012 Members Share Posted December 16, 2012 Probably a dumb question but I'm going to ask anyway. I know that if I piggyback two banana plugs into an amp properly the speakers will be in parallel. What happens if I piggyback the plugs the wrong way with one plug reversed? Would that result in the speakers being wired in series or will it result in some kind of disaster? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members trevcda Posted December 16, 2012 Members Share Posted December 16, 2012 When reversed the two speakers will be out phase with one another. This explains it rather well and gives some examples:http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_polaritycheck.php While it's often said that no damage will come from this, damage often occurs as the user tries to get more bass from speakers that are playing out of phase, through the use of extreme eq'ing and added volume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gruven65 Posted December 16, 2012 Members Share Posted December 16, 2012 How would one "piggyback" banana plugs properly? Why would you do it that way when you can easily run a cable from cabinet to cabinet and not have to worry about whether or not you reversed the banana plug? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarman3001 Posted December 16, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 16, 2012 Originally Posted by gruven65 How would one "piggyback" banana plugs properly? Why would you do it that way when you can easily run a cable from cabinet to cabinet and not have to worry about whether or not you reversed the banana plug? By properly I mean piggybacking them so the + of one goes into the + of the other, and - goes into - so the speakers end up wired in parallel. We would do it that way if we have two banana cables and don't have a 1/4" to 1/4" cable to run from one speaker cab to the other. Or several other reasons why we may not be able to or want to do it that way. I'm just trying to figure out what happens if we reverse one of the cables. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gruven65 Posted December 16, 2012 Members Share Posted December 16, 2012 Originally Posted by guitarman3001 I'm just trying to figure out what happens if we reverse one of the cables. You end up with your speaker phase reversed. Instead of both speakers pushing outward, the one with the reversed cable will be pulling inward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted December 16, 2012 Members Share Posted December 16, 2012 Originally Posted by gruven65 Why would you do it that way when you can easily run a cable from cabinet to cabinet and not have to worry about whether or not you reversed the banana plug? Banana plugs (sometimes called Pomona plugs) are just an older method of connecting speakers. They could handle high enough(at the time) current and were relatively inexpensive. They are not a good choice for portable systems these days as they allow for simple mistakes. Of course there are times when flipping polarity is a good thingUsing terms like "piggyback" and not technically concise and can result in mis-communication (like "daisy-chained") as pointed out in your first question. It will serve you well to learn when something is series wired or parallel wired and then use that term. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gruven65 Posted December 16, 2012 Members Share Posted December 16, 2012 Originally Posted by dboomer It will serve you well to learn when something is series wired or parallel wired and then use that term. I understand the difference between series and parallel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pro Sound Guy Posted December 16, 2012 Members Share Posted December 16, 2012 Out of phase is true but actually 180 degrees difference in phase. Polarity reversal is what you are doing with the described connection. You do not want to do this with cabinets operating in the same bandwidth. What you experience is cancelation. I guess you could call it a sonic disaster depending on how serious you are about your sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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