Niles HD5 Installation & Operation Manual page 19

Figure 17
Speaker Phase
Speaker wire has two conductors. One
conductor is attached to the negative (-)
terminals and one conductor is attached to
the positive (+) terminals of both your
speaker and your amplifier. Usually, the
wire is marked for your convenience.
There are different ways wires are marked:
a stripe on one wire, a ribbed area of one
conductor you can only feel, different col-
ors of metal wire on each conductor, or
there might be a fabric strand or string
wound into one of the conductors. Of
course, there are some wires which appear
completely identical. Be careful, or you
might make a mistake.
If you make a mistake, one speaker will be
playing "out-of-phase" with the other
speaker. An out-of-phase pair of speakers
work against each other and the sound of
the two speakers playing together will be
lacking in bass and be "phasey" sounding.
If you suspect the sound is not right and
you cannot see any markings on the wire,
try this simple test:
1. Stand half way between the two speakers.
2. Play some music with the amplifier or
radio set to Mono.
3. Listen to the richness of the bass and the
loudness of the sound.
4. Turn off the amplifier and reverse the con-
nections on one amplifier channel only.
5. Repeat the listening test with the same
setting of the volume control. When the
sound has a richer bass and is slightly
louder the speakers are working together
or "in-phase".
Adjusting the Bass and Treble
Controls
The HD High Definition loudspeakers
feature separate baffle-mounted bass and
treble controls for fine tuning after installa-
tion. Each control provides for approxi-
mately 3dB in steps of 1dB of Bass or
Treble reduction. This is useful if the
speakers are placed near boundaries (Bass
Cut) or in a room with highly reflective
surfaces like glass or tile. (Treble Cut).
(See Figure 18).
Figure 18
18