** If both ear phones work but are wired out of phase, the AA cell click
test produces a sound that seems to be originating outside the head on both
sides. Mono speech or music sounds much the same.
The effect is far MORE pronounced than with typical stereo speakers in a
room.
Puking two speakers with front panels against each other is a quite
easy way to check polarity. If the polarity is correct, you will hear
some low frequency sounds emitted from the combination. If the
polarity is wrong, you will hear only mid- and high pitch sounds,
since the low frequency air is moving between the cones of the
speakers.
With headphones, you either get "in head" or unrealistic sound
depending on the phasing of headphones.
Sennheiser did the wiring correctly by keeping all four wires separate
and connected to a 4 pin DIN plug and by adding a 4 pin DIN to 6.35 mm
plug adaptor.
As a kid, I was really pissed of by the convention of using common
returns in headphones. I was testing frequency diversity reception of
the same broadcast programs on two different shortwave bands with two
receivers. Unfortunately, the other receiver was of AC/DC type with
the full 220 Vac in the chassis. Thus I had to rewire the phones so
that one side could (potentially) siting on 220 Vac, and the other
side sitting close to ground potential.
After this alteration, I had no problems with this arrangement.
No problems, no problems, no problems
