Is it Pushing or Pulling? Verifying Polarity
Before you spend an hour EQing, you must ensure your drivers are all moving in the same direction. A single “out-of-phase” (inverted polarity) XLR cable can destroy the low-mid punch of any large system.
The IR Method
- Switch Smaart to Live IR (Impulse Response) within your TF engine.
- Look at the very first “spike” of the waveform.
- If the spike goes UP, your polarity is positive. If it goes DOWN, your polarity is inverted.
Note: Some speakers are designed with inverted polarity on certain drivers (like a horn) to match the phase at the crossover. Always compare your measurement to a “known good” box of the same model before you go swapping pins in a connector!
Smaart is excellent on its own, but most users find they get much more out of it after some structured training. That’s where our seminars come in. At TZ Audio we run practical seminars, both online and in-venue. We offer seminar-only or full “all you need packages” including software & hardware. It’s simply the fastest way to become comfortable and confident with the measuring a sound system.
If you’re in Norway, Sweden, Denmark or Iceland – or elsewhere – we offer is online seminars and traveling to Norway is a valid option too of course. We’re here if you have any questions about the software or upcoming seminars.
Thanks for reading!