Are my speakers not in phase? Why does it sound like this?? Help!

[RTilbury]

I have a pair of tannoy fusion 4 speakers biwired with audioquest cv4 and tara labs quantum III cables. Recently I purchased a onix xcd-88 cd player and replaced my yamaha cdc775. Lately I have noticed that I must turn the dial on my NAD C350 way luder than usualy, around 10 to get decently loud. This was never the case before. Also the sound is very ?trebley? and harsh in the top range, the midrange isnt as warm as usual and the bass is kind of lackluster! What happened? I tested the same cd on my sony sacd/dvd player and it has that same sound, it never sounded like that before. Its not just the one cd either. Using the THX setup I can clearly make out the left channel, the right, and center is directly ahead. When the phase test comes the speakers sound like they are in phase when they are supposed to be and out of phase when they are not supposed to be. One thing I have noticed is that the white noise doesnt sound as loud as it did before.

I have heard before that NAD reverses the polarity for some reason. Could this be the cause. Would switching all the posotive cables with the negative cables on the back of the speaker terminals fix this? I have checked and all cables are setup correctly.

[JohnMichael]

I have a pair of tannoy fusion 4 speakers biwired with audioquest cv4 and tara labs quantum III cables. Recently I purchased a onix xcd-88 cd player and replaced my yamaha cdc775. Lately I have noticed that I must turn the dial on my NAD C350 way luder than usualy, around 10 to get decently loud. This was never the case before. Also the sound is very ?trebley? and harsh in the top range, the midrange isnt as warm as usual and the bass is kind of lackluster! What happened? I tested the same cd on my sony sacd/dvd player and it has that same sound, it never sounded like that before. Its not just the one cd either. Using the THX setup I can clearly make out the left channel, the right, and center is directly ahead. When the phase test comes the speakers sound like they are in phase when they are supposed to be and out of phase when they are not supposed to be. One thing I have noticed is that the white noise doesnt sound as loud as it did before.

I have heard before that NAD reverses the polarity for some reason. Could this be the cause. Would switching all the posotive cables with the negative cables on the back of the speaker terminals fix this? I have checked and all cables are setup correctly.

Did all this start with the change in cd players? I know you have posted problems with the NAD amp before and it may be time to have it checked out. When I try to diagnose a problem I try to remove as many variables as I can. For the time being I would put the jumper straps in and single wire your speakers. Check to make sure you do have the polarity correct. I think it would be easier to make an error with this bi wired especially with two different brands of cables. Next I would unplug all your source componets and use just one to check the different inputs. If all the inputs sound the same I would take the one source componet and use different interconnects to see if you have a bad interconnect. I have used this example in other posts but my Sony ES cd player sounds very grating in the high frequencies with a high capcitance cable. Also some cd players outputs can be a little lower than others so you would need to set the volume control to a higher level but this does not hurt anything. The symptoms of having your speakers out of phase is vague imaging and reduced bass. Reverse phase would not cause this problem.

[RTilbury]

The thing is that it sounds this way with my dvd player also, I was watching gladiator and it just sounded thin and not very three dimensional. I had to crank it up and the voices were just flat and none realistic. I think i tried the headphones and the sound was great. So I just am not sure what this could be. So if the speaker wires are reversed it will sound exactly the same? Because I dont think they are out of phase, it is a different sound.

This weekend I was away at a friends house, who has the Tannoy mx4s. He has them bi wired and I was telling him about this problem of mine. We decided to see what his would sound like if we reversed all the speaker wires, and low and behold the bass became a lot thinner, the highs became harsh and very trebble like, it didnt sound terrible, neither does mine, but it became very non musical flat and two dimensional. You might not have known if you never heard them hooked up the other way. But if you had you would know something was wrong.

I havent had time to go home, i am at work now. But could this be my problem? could the NAD be reversing the - and + on the back terminals? Someone here or on another forum said he owned a shop and almost all the NAD amps had this problem, bad QC? or did NAD forget to tell people?

[RGA]

My dealer had a lot of this out of phase LIKE sound but not out of phase -- but they only had the problem on the 320bee from what he said. He has carried NAD for years and was trying to get NAD to get the designer on the phone but he is contracted by NAD. In my listening session of the 320bee I felt it was very poor sounding and downright dull on top of the weird stage. The Rotel RA2 was much better in every way - he carries Rotel as well.

I don't know about the polarity issue and the 350 and 370 I like a LOT more than the 320bee -- But it has been a few years perhpas they put out a bad run. NAD has not exactly been great in the QC department over the years.

[T BOMB25]

No such things the 320bbe is a reliable sweet sounding amp at this price the Rotel at this price is much more mechanical sounding and bright and doesent have near the power and soundstage deph as amatter of fact they dont even sell well over here in the states Ro2 thats the model to RGA somethings always gonna be wrong with you equipment.Just take every thing down and go over it again and that doesnt work contact your dealer.

[RGA]

TBOMB - No such thing -- seems this poster I and my dealer and everyone else who has heard this problem is hearing it. This poster is clearly hearing a problem which seems to be similar if not the same problem I and others have heard with another NAD.

The Rotel is slightly lean and it's a little bright -- so you won't get argument from me but for the money it's one of the better ones around and this complaint I could level at a vast number of much more expensive SS amplifiers. The Rotel doesn't lack power -- many speakers lack sensitivity for no good reason.