# Question about polarity (I think)



## Guest (Jan 12, 2009)

I recently bought a used projector off of eBay for a few hundred and then I bought a Philips HTS3565D at WalMart the other day to complement the projector. I had to splice some of the speaker wires in order to make them long enough for the speakers to mount in the correct spot. I put everything on the surface of the wall to test it and then eventually was going to run the wires through the wall/ceiling. We watched about 3 movies on it that night and it sounded great. The next morning I went to use it and there wasn't any sound and when I touched the volume control on the head-unit it froze up and then wouldn't turn off/on even after several attempts. Philips CS was great and shipped me out a new system. My question is, is it possible that I fried the unit by maybe not hooking up my wire extensions correctly? I tried to be consistent throughout each splice but I guess I didn't understand that speaker wires had separate polarity. Please help b/c I'm going to have to splice the new system when it arrives as well and I don't want to do the same thing again!


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Switching the polarity wouldn't fry your system. Crossing/shorting the wires might though. Splice again, but this time, make sure everything is wrapped neatly in electrical tape.

You might also consider returning the system and spending a litle more money on one that allows you to use your own speaker wires in the proper length.

Good luck.


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2009)

PHEW! Thanx! I'm pretty sure it was just a lemon unit. There was some damage to the box so I was a bit hesitant but everything looked fine inside the box and it sounded good once it was hooked up.


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

Click the link in my signature for a tech article about how to splice speaker wires.

Regards,
Wayne


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2009)

Thanks, guys. The new unit showed up and I took my time to make sure I had good, soldered connections and consistent through to the end. Thanks again for your help.


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