# determining positive and negitive input wires in a speaker



## rooster (Jan 18, 2010)

I am instaling some small (13x9) speakers made by Sony into a reciever , there are 2 wires going into the speaker 1 solid red the other Black with a red stripe. Witch is positive? TIA!!


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Probably the Red one, but as long as you stay consistent between all the speakers, you'll be fine. After you're done, use a test disc to check phase between speaker pairs. If they are out of phase, simply switch the wires.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Most likely the solid red is the positive.


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## rooster (Jan 18, 2010)

Confession: The red stripe on the black wire was nothng more of the red part of the wire being stuck to the black wire , when the wires were pulled apart. Thats the first mistake I ever made. LOL:whistling:


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Hilarious!


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## selden (Nov 15, 2009)

Speakers' audio signals are rapidly alternating voltages, not a fixed positive and negative like a battery. However, you usually need to keep them in-phase, so the red binding post on the amp for each speaker needs to be connected to the red binding post on its speaker, and the amp's black binding post connected to the speaker's black one.


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

A battery, however, can be a good way to pulse a speaker to test phasing. If you touch the leads briefly to a battery and watch the direction the cone moves, you can identify phasing. Reverse the battery and it will move in the other direction.


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## Chester (Feb 19, 2007)

I am pretty sure when you connect the positive terminal of a battery to the positive terminal of the speaker it should produce an 'outward' motion on the cone... the cone should move away from the magnet of the speaker


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

Probably, but it really does not matter as long as all of the speakers move in the same direction, unless you are intentionally wiring something out of phase.


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## Chester (Feb 19, 2007)

I'd agree that the 'absolute phase' of the system is of little importance; however for impulse type of sound, for example a kick drum or something I could see absolute phase making a difference...

absolute phase is a 'sticky' subject though  there is some info/research on the topic at the end of this article that you may find interesting: http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/988awsi/index1.html ... it has some decent reasoning why absolute phase can be perceived in some cases; for the most part I agree though that it does not matter


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

If one is concerned that absolute phase is causing a problem, it is easy to change it and try the other phase. Just reverse all of the speaker connections at either the speakers or the amp.


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