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Incorrect speaker cable connection can damage amp?

Dear Audiophile gurus,

I recently bought a tube integrated amplifier and
mistakenly I connected the speaker cables to the amp
outputs incorrectly; my amp has outputs for two sets of speakers as follows:
...............---- A -----.....................---- B -----
.set 1 ---> L..o....o..R.....................L..o....o..R
.set 2 ---> L..o....o..R.....................L..o....o..R

and when I first tried to hook things up I connected
for the Right speaker L to B1.R and R to B2.R and
for the Left speaker L to A1.L and R to A2.L

Can this cause any damage to my amplifier?!

Thank you in advance.
diavlos
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
It doesn't seem to me that you're shortcircuiting outputs so it will not damage your amp. Connect your speakers correctly to either one of sets. In lots of cases extra set exists for biwiring with the separate set of speaker cables(or wires). If you have a tube amp you should check if the two sets are designed to work with speakers that have a different impedance.
In well-designed tube amp there will be an output stage fuse that you can check, but first you should connect them properly and listen.

I'm still undefined about wheather the A, B are the sets of speakers(which I mostly believe) or set1,set2.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
It looks like you either connected them out of phase (plus (RED) to minus (black), and minus to plus) which will do no damage, it just may sound a little thin; or you connected the left channel to the the right speaker, and vise-versa, which is OK also.

If you connected one speaker in-phase and the other out of phase, some sounds will just cancel each other out (in the air).
This is OK electrically also, it just won't sound right.

fatparrot
1,314 posts
 
Most high end amps have protective circuitry or fuses to protect against "user stupidity"! Don't take this personally, as I was referring to myself! In audio, we all do`dumb things over the course of our listening pleasures throughout the years! If this is your first tube gear, PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE VOLTAGES INVOLVED CAN BE LETHAL, EVEN IF THE UNIT HAS BEEN TURNED OFF FOR A WHILE!!! Let the unit play, at low volume, with the power OFF until the sound ceases. Be sure that no part of your body is grounded (touching the metal chassis, two parts at once, metal equipment rack, or turning on a light switch) when replacing tubes or fiddling around inside. Happy Tunes!
diavlos OP
2 posts
 
Folks, I think I did not explain things well.

Instead of thinking things horizontally, I thought of them
vertically, so the two ends of each speaker spanned both the
set1 and set2 amplifier speaker connectors! Is this better now?! That is why there was no sound to be heard!
The L of a speaker cable was connect to the L of set1, but
the R of the same speaker cable was connected to the L of set2! Sorry, but that is how things were laid out on my solid state amp!

Thanks again
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