New ELX Ribbons - Phase error?

[malaplace]

Hello all. I am working through the weekend to dial in and calibrate the new ELX speakers (which are beautiful by the way). After I performed sub calibration, I re-ran Audyssey for the mains. Audyssey xt32 tells me there is a phase error. I've checked my wiring and things are positive / negative to the receiver in the way setup as I had with the Towers just replaced. Could this be due to the new crossover design? I can't fathom the terminals were reversed when they were built, but I suppose it is a possibility? Should I try reversing the positive/negative just to check? If it matters, with my ear to the tweeters, I notice a slight bit of a hiss or buzz when no sound is playing through them. This could also be noise in my system, but I have not heard this with the original towers I just replaced. Open to ideas!

[djDANNY]

Is it for both speakers or only one? I did LX upgrade on my Sierra 2’s and one of the terminals on the LX woofer was marked incorrectly by SEAS (they put a red mark on the positive terminal but the ended up putting the red mark on the negative which I confirmed when I took apart all the speakers and compared the drivers and noticed the difference). Like you, Audyssey threw a phase error on me for that one speaker that had the driver marked incorrectly. Once I switched the wires on the terminals for that driver it fixed the issue and Audyssey no longer reported a phase error.

[davef]

Hello all. I am working through the weekend to dial in and calibrate the new ELX speakers (which are beautiful by the way). After I performed sub calibration, I re-ran Audyssey for the mains. Audyssey xt32 tells me there is a phase error. I've checked my wiring and things are positive / negative to the receiver in the way setup as I had with the Towers just replaced. Could this be due to the new crossover design? I can't fathom the terminals were reversed when they were built, but I suppose it is a possibility? Should I try reversing the positive/negative just to check? If it matters, with my ear to the tweeters, I notice a slight bit of a hiss or buzz when no sound is playing through them. This could also be noise in my system, but I have not heard this with the original towers I just replaced. Open to ideas!

Hey Mal,

Audyssey phase errors are common, and with the ELX - should be ignored. We fully test every aspect, including polarity, of every assembled speaker that we ship. It wouldn't even be a physical possibility for an ELX to leave our facility with reversed polarity.

Regarding any hiss that you hear, passive speakers can not generate hiss. If you are hearing hiss it is being generated from somewhere in the signal chain.

First step in troubleshooting this would be to determine if the hiss gets louder when you increase the volume. If it does, it is being generated by a component prior to the pre-amplification stage. If it does not, it is then likely being caused by your receiver (could be a grounding issue).

Enjoy the speakers!!!

[davef]

Is it for both speakers or only one? I did LX upgrade on my Sierra 2’s and one of the terminals on the LX woofer was marked incorrectly by SEAS (they put a red mark on the positive terminal but the ended up putting the red mark on the negative which I confirmed when I took apart all the speakers and compared the drivers and noticed the difference). Like you, Audyssey threw a phase error on me for that one speaker that had the driver marked incorrectly. Once I switched the wires on the terminals for that driver it fixed the issue and Audyssey no longer reported a phase error.

Yeah - this was a very different situation because this was an upgrade, not an assembled speaker. Still, that was the first time we have ever even seen this mistake from SEAS, and we are talking tens of thousands of drivers from them at this point. But, the woofer was wired in correct phase - just that somehow one of their workers marked the wrong terminal.

With SEAS woofers, when facing the terminals, positive will always be on your left side. But ever since you caught this, we now also check to make sure the marking is correct.

We had originally requested that the LX woofers use different sized terminals, larger one for positive and smaller for negative, but they were not able to do this for us so both terminals are the same size. To avoid possible polarity confusion, we asked them to mark the positive terminal with red ink.

[malaplace]

Hey Mal,

Audyssey phase errors are common, and with the ELX - should be ignored. We fully test every aspect, including polarity, of every assembled speaker that we ship. It wouldn't even be a physical possibility for an ELX to leave our facility with reversed polarity.

Regarding any hiss that you hear, passive speakers can not generate hiss. If you are hearing hiss it is being generated from somewhere in the signal chain.

First step in troubleshooting this would be to determine if the hiss gets louder when you increase the volume. If it does, it is being generated by a component prior to the pre-amplification stage. If it does not, it is then likely being caused by your receiver (could be a grounding issue).

Enjoy the speakers!!!

Dave, thanks so much. I pushed past the error reporting from Audyssey and finished performing the room correction. I also identified the source of my low level hiss (one of my devices in the signal change). After aa few days of working to calibrate a second Rythmik sub to my room, the ELX speakers finally showed up on the doorstep. I am current owners of the original Sierra 1s that I subsequently upgraded to NrT (now in my home office). I also have the first run of Towers many years ago that have stood in our family room and open kitchen space ever since. I have loved those speakers and though I was excited to see if the ELX could best them, I was not anticipating anything dramatic. I decided not to upgrade my original Towers and instead will put them in another room, so I have had the luxury of having them side by side to the new ELX.
Holy *hit, man.
The ELX are not just better than the OG Towers. They blow them away. It is not the same thing. Seriously - not even close. Last night we had friends over for dinner. The husband immediately knew something was different in the music. He asked what I changed as it sounded — from the kitchen — like someone “pulled a sleeping bag off the [old] speakers.” The change is such a dramatic difference in texture (my son), in sparkle (my wife), in “airiness” for the vocals and overall “slam” (me), that I am not sure where to go from here. I guess I now understand what “end game” means. Last night we spent most of the evening sitting in front of the speakers playing every one of our favorite songs. I see much of the same for us today. Dave, well done and thank you.

[davef]

Dave, thanks so much. I pushed past the error reporting from Audyssey and finished performing the room correction. I also identified the source of my low level hiss (one of my devices in the signal change). After aa few days of working to calibrate a second Rythmik sub to my room, the ELX speakers finally showed up on the doorstep. I am current owners of the original Sierra 1s that I subsequently upgraded to NrT (now in my home office). I also have the first run of Towers many years ago that have stood in our family room and open kitchen space ever since. I have loved those speakers and though I was excited to see if the ELX could best them, I was not anticipating anything dramatic. I decided not to upgrade my original Towers and instead will put them in another room, so I have had the luxury of having them side by side to the new ELX.
Holy *hit, man.
The ELX are not just better than the OG Towers. They blow them away. It is not the same thing. Seriously - not even close. Last night we had friends over for dinner. The husband immediately knew something was different in the music. He asked what I changed as it sounded — from the kitchen — like someone “pulled a sleeping bag off the [old] speakers.” The change is such a dramatic difference in texture (my son), in sparkle (my wife), in “airiness” for the vocals and overall “slam” (me), that I am not sure where to go from here. I guess I now understand what “end game” means. Last night we spent most of the evening sitting in front of the speakers playing every one of our favorite songs. I see much of the same for us today. Dave, well done and thank you.

Excellent - happy to hear that you found what was causing the hiss. That can sometimes be very tricky.

I am even more pleased to know that you, your family and friends are enjoying the ELX! They are truly something quite special

Thanks so much and enjoy!

[davidhite]

I have the same phase error with the Denon 6700, Audyssey xt32, and the ELX towers. I have been ignoring it as Dave suggested.