[gbaby]

I own a Bryston 2.5bsst2. My system has not been sounding correct for more than a year. Today, having played an SACD, I determined that I am missing a channel although both speakers were playing. After using a little deductive reasoning, I looked on the back of the amp and I discovered that the switch was on mono rather than stereo. I also discovered another switch was on single ended rather than balanced. However, once I changed both switches my sound came back. Apparently these switches were chanced at some point when I was vacuuming. So, my point is, always check your connections especially if you own a 2.5b as it is easy for those switches or toggles to flip without your knowledge. I now have a new system. 

[richidoo]

    

A little reasoning goes a long way in this world.
way to go! Thanks for sharing

[gbaby]

   

A little reasoning goes a long way in this world.
way to go! Thanks for sharing

Your welcome. The sad thing is that I recently purchased a Bryston BP2 mm/mc phono preamp and a Rega P6 Turntable with a Ania moving coil cartridge as well as a couple of UHQR vinyls by Mlles Davis and Jimmy Hendrix. None of these sounded right so now I am happy to revisit all of them. 

[krustykat]

Many years ago I listened to an Ayre AX-7e from my local dealer.  The sound was great, so I decided to order one.  Unfortunately, they gave me a unit that had been ordered for another client and it was a custom configuration to be used with with an external sub woofer.  The bass sucked and it didn't sound anything like the demo unit I had tried.  It was so bad on the unit I had to keep turning the volume up and eventually it blew up.  When I called the dealer about this, they said that they needed to contact me because my unit came in and this was mistakenly sent to me.  Replacement unit was A+, but for a month or so I thought that I had bought a real dog...

[2bigears]

  good point. Secret switches and bad cables or connections will getcha every time.  Play on now. 

[gbaby]

What really makes me feel a little stupid is that I was having regrets buying my phono pre-amp and turntable as nothing sounded right. Now I know the reason, and I am hearing my turntable for the first time. Yesterday, I played both my Grand Funk Collection vinyl as well as the Jimi Hendrix UHQR in vinyl. It was the first time I heard them both played back correctly, and all I can say is WOW! 

[gbaby]

I now know the reason, although flawed, why I preferred Dolby Pro Logic Iix music as opposed to two chennal. And, the reason was that my Bryston amp was playing two channel in mono rather than stereo so I was getting zero stereo imaging for years. I will have to revisit my entire two channel collections in both vinyl and CD. I also have to revisit movies too. Its keeping me up quite late, but its fun. 

[WGH]

A friend loves to DIY, he built his speakers and all the wires: interconnects and speaker cables. After a year he discovered the polarity was reversed on one of the wires, it's easy to do. He never noticed the mistake because the stereo speakers were monitors that didn't do deep bass. A pair of GR Research subs were in phase and compensated for the bass suck-out.

A DIY guy should use the free Polarity Checking apps that are available. After I finished setting up my 11 channel Dolby Atmos setup I went around the room checking the polarity of every speaker.

Determining the polarity of a midrange or tweeter used to be very hard but now with smart phones the test is easy.
I use the Polarity Checker for Android and it works great, I changed my dipole surround speakers to bipole and the app easily identified which drivers were out of phase.

iPhones can use Speaker Polarity (Speaker Pop)



Watch the videos, the testing method is the same for the Android and Apple apps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-W0T1cTjos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7EwxmtTDV4

[LedZep]

Hi gbaby,

Very weird situation, I could not understand how could you hear mono sound (from your both speakers).

Because input selection was not the way you connected at, normally no sound is heard of.

Mono selection is basically bridge configuration. However your speaker cables were connected at amp binding posts for stereo configuration.

Once I blew one of my 2b transformer. It was connected for bridged configuration however the switch was at stereo by mistake. I think you are lucky somehow.

Enjoy your bp2 and the music ✋

[gbaby]

A friend loves to DIY, he built his speakers and all the wires: interconnects and speaker cables. After a year he discovered the polarity was reversed on one of the wires, it's easy to do. He never noticed the mistake because the stereo speakers were monitors that didn't do deep bass. A pair of GR Research subs were in phase and compensated for the bass suck-out.

A DIY guy should use the free Polarity Checking apps that are available. After I finished setting up my 11 channel Dolby Atmos setup I went around the room checking the polarity of every speaker.

Determining the polarity of a midrange or tweeter used to be very hard but now with smart phones the test is easy.
I use the Polarity Checker for Android and it works great, I changed my dipole surround speakers to bipole and the app easily identified which drivers were out of phase.

iPhones can use Speaker Polarity (Speaker Pop)



Watch the videos, the testing method is the same for the Android and Apple apps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-W0T1cTjos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7EwxmtTDV4

Correct polarity is definitely important so thanks for the link for my iPhone as I will use it. 

[gbaby]

Hi gbaby,

Very weird situation, I could not understand how could you hear mono sound (from your both speakers).

Because input selection was not the way you connected at, normally no sound is heard of.

Mono selection is basically bridge configuration. However your speaker cables were connected at amp binding posts for stereo configuration.

Once I blew one of my 2b transformer. It was connected for bridged configuration however the switch was at stereo by mistake. I think you are lucky somehow.

Enjoy your bp2 and the music ✋

All I can say is that while playing two channel, I felt as if one of the channels were missing as I could not hear all the music. I was playing an SACD by Aretha Franklin called Aretha's Gold, but I could not hear the background vocals as well as the horns from Muscle Shoals musicians. I looked at both the SP3 and the Bryston 2.5b SST2, and when I flipped the switch on the amp, the sound came back for both channels and I could again hear stereo imaging. 

[whydontumarryit]

I now know the reason, although flawed, why I preferred Dolby Pro Logic Iix music as opposed to two chennal. And, the reason was that my Bryston amp was playing two channel in mono rather than stereo so I was getting zero stereo imaging for years. I will have to revisit my entire two channel collections in both vinyl and CD. I also have to revisit movies too. Its keeping me up quite late, but its fun. 

Ouch! I would have kept that to myself. Just saying.

[gbaby]

Ouch! I would have kept that to myself. Just saying.

No shame from me. It happens.

[vonnie123]

The more complicated your system (speaking from personal experience here) the more chances for bad cables, incidents of hum, and incorrect connections/settings.   Thanks for sharing....been there done that.  Tracking and tracing the problems can take hours.....glad you got it straightened out @gbaby

[gbaby]

The more complicated your system (speaking from personal experience here) the more chances for bad cables, incidents of hum, and incorrect connections/settings.   Thanks for sharing....been there done that.  Tracking and tracing the problems can take hours.....glad you got it straightened out @gbaby

Thanks. My next move is the purchase the polarity software that has been posted herein for my iPhone as this is just as important.

[gbaby]

The more complicated your system (speaking from personal experience here) the more chances for bad cables, incidents of hum, and incorrect connections/settings.   Thanks for sharing....been there done that.  Tracking and tracing the problems can take hours.....glad you got it straightened out @gbaby

You are so correct. My situation is worse than I imagine as I now believe I may have had an incorrect setting for quite some time. Everything sounds so much better now and I can finally hear stereo imaging which eluded me in the past due to the amp being set to mono.  I am having a great time, however, rediscovering my music catalog.